


The Crossroads of Eshu

by Melyanna (darthmelyanna)



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, really an alternate dimension but who’s counting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 53,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23671492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthmelyanna/pseuds/Melyanna
Summary: Stranded in an alternate reality, Sam Carter is in a unique position to help when a threat looms at the edge of the galaxy.  Meanwhile, she must deal with Jack O'Neill, who is grieving the loss of his wife.
Relationships: John Sheppard/Elizabeth Weir, Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 8
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If my time in Stargate fandom had a cross-section, this fic would be it. Alternate universe (though not as alternate as others)! Sam/Jack! Sheppard/Weir! (Literally, The Storm/The Eye aired while I was writing this, and that was where I fell madly in love.) Sarah Gardner! Oh, Sarah Gardner. (Technically, this story is the sequel to an SG-1 story I wrote called Not in Kansas Anymore, but it stands alone.)

  
For Faith, who is the reason this story is what it is, but also for Miera, who is the reason this story finally got a proper edit.

* * *

"So... this isn't dangerous, right?"

Jack was standing across the table from where two women were working. One was Carter, of course, and she looked up and gave him a knowing smile. "I think we can be pretty sure it's safe, sir," she said.

The woman next to her glanced up for a moment, then at Daniel on her other side. "It should be fine, General," Ke'ra said.

"See, it's the _I think_ and _should be_ that have me worried." Of course, there was something else that had him worried too. He had a hard time not thinking of Ke'ra as Linea, even though she'd ceased to be that woman in anything but genetic makeup five years earlier. But Linea must have gone nuts at some point, right?

He sighed, and decided not to press the point. Again. Earlier in the week they'd gotten a call from Vyus – Ke'ra had made a discovery, and while she had some idea as to what it would do, she needed several inscriptions on the device translated to know for certain. Thus, Ke'ra had requested permission to bring it to Earth.

It was a large silver cylinder, not too different in appearance from the thing that had made them all see those interdimensional bugs a couple years earlier. Jack was really hoping that this didn't turn out the same way, and the three eggheads had been assuring him that it wouldn't.

"As far as we can tell from the design and from Daniel's translations, it's a power source, sir," Carter said, apparently sensing his discomfort. "But it doesn't draw its power from this dimension."

"That's where you lose me," Jack replied. "How does it do that?"

She shrugged, eyebrows raised. "We've found plenty of evidence to suggest that the Ancients were doing a lot of research that led them to discover how to Ascend. Tapping into another dimension would have been part of that."

"So... how much power are we talking here?" Daniel asked.

"Enough to run the major cities of the world indefinitely," Carter replied. "And if we get it configured properly, it might just be enough to sustain defense shields for the planet."

"That'd be a nice perk," Jack commented. Carter smiled.

Ke'ra cleared her throat. "Are we ready to test this, Colonel Carter?" she asked.

"Yeah, let's do it."

Ke'ra pressed a sequence of buttons on the rim of the cylinder, and Carter picked up a small device which Jack suspected to be a remote control. She pressed a big purple button in the middle of it, and the machine started whirring at increasingly high frequencies.

Then, quite suddenly, there was a bright flash of light. When Jack's eyes had recovered, Carter had disappeared.

* * *

  
After the brilliant flash, Sam found herself in total darkness. "Guess we should have moved this to an old bunker to test," she said. "The EM field must have knocked out the..."

She trailed off, suddenly feeling very alone. "Hello?" she said. "Anyone?"

Her eyes were growing more accustomed to the dimness. A soft light filtered in from the hall, and Sam realized she was alone in her lab, and yet it wasn't her lab. The things in it weren't hers. Jack, Daniel, and Ke'ra were gone, as was the power device they had been experimenting with. This was all very, very wrong.

There were people walking by the open doorway, though none looked to see the very confused woman within. Sam slowly walked toward it, and as she reached it, a familiar head of spiky hair passed – and the last she knew, the man who went with that spiky hair was on Langara, directing his home world's gate program. "Jonas?" she said, incredulous.

He whirled around, looking for the source of the voice. He looked as he always had – boyish and eager, ready for the next challenge. But apparently seeing Sam was not something he was ready for. His jaw dropped and his green eyes grew wide.

"Colonel?" Jonas blinked several times, squeezed his eyes shut, and shook his head. "I thought Doctor Fraiser said I was fine."

"Doctor Fraiser?" Sam repeated, now more confused than ever. "Jonas, what's going on?"

"You're asking me?" he said. Then, someone walked by them, and Jonas grabbed the person's elbow. "Lieutenant, I need you to tell me I'm crazy."

"Fine, you're crazy," said another familiar voice. "Why exactly?"

Jonas pointed in Sam's direction. "Tell me you don't see someone there."

He looked at her, and Sam gasped. "Elliot," she said. "You're supposed to be dead."

"Holy crap." The young man jumped slightly, then shook his head. "No, ma'am," he replied, " _you're_ supposed to be dead."


	2. Chapter 2

  
"What the _hell_?"

Elizabeth Weir was known as a woman of great patience and great tolerance for surprises. It was why she'd been asked to run the SGC in the first place. But there were certain truths she held to be self-evident, and first and foremost was that dead people did _not_ , under any circumstances, spontaneously appear alive.

"Doctor Weir, I think there might be an explanation," Jonas was saying.

"Well, I certainly hope so!" she said. "I realize that all kinds of weird things happen here, but this is not on the list of attractions, even for the Stargate program!"

"Doctor, I don't think she's the real Samantha Carter," Jonas explained, patiently. "At least, not _our_ real Samantha Carter."

"What are you saying, Jonas?" she asked. "She's some kind of clone?"

He shook his head. "There was another incident about five years ago when a Samantha Carter and Major Kawalski appeared at Area 51. What if this is something similar?"

"That was the quantum mirror, right?" she said. "Alternate realities?"

Jonas nodded, an earnest, eager look in his eyes.

There were a lot of questions that were left unanswered by that, but Elizabeth chose not to ask them. "Where is she?"

"In a holding cell on Level 16."

Elizabeth nodded and took a deep breath. "Well, let's see what damage we can do."

In a few minutes they had traveled up to Level 16. As they stepped off the elevator and made their way down the corridors, she said, very softly, "It's really her?"

Jonas exhaled slowly. "As near as we can tell. We obviously haven't had time for genetic tests or anything, but if this is an impostor, then I've never seen anyone who looked and acted so much like her. Besides," he added, "she thought Hayden Elliot was supposed to be dead."

"And how's that significant?"

"Well, both the realities that were encountered through the quantum mirror had diverged long before they intersected again. It seems like this Carter knew Elliot, so it's possible that her reality diverged pretty recently."

"You know this is all really strange to me, right?"

"Yeah."

They'd reached the holding cell by then, and Elizabeth fought back a wave of revulsion. She'd never cared for the military, and while the last couple years at Cheyenne Mountain had taught her that some of her prejudices about the methods of warriors were unreasonable, she'd never fully accepted this kind of treatment of newcomers. At the very least, they could have let Doctor Fraiser examine her first. Whatever was going on, there was no telling what the physical toll on this person was.

Elizabeth nodded to the guard at the door, who swiped a card through the reader. She looked at Jonas. "Oh, do you need me to do anything?" he asked.

"Get me everything you can find on all of this. I know you and Colonel Carter did some extensive research on the topic before her death."

Jonas nodded and walked off. Meanwhile, Elizabeth went through the door.

The sight within was somewhat at odds with what she remembered of the woman. Samantha Carter – for all intents and purposes – was seated in one of the room's two chairs, her hands clasped on top of the table. Instead of the almost brazen confidence she'd always seen in the colonel, agitation was clear on her face. "Doctor Weir?" she said, as Elizabeth entered. "What are you doing here?"

A little bewildered, Elizabeth closed the door behind her. "Colonel Carter, I don't think you're in a position to ask that," she calmly replied.

Carter didn't answer, so Elizabeth took a seat across from her, mimicking her posture. "I have to say, this is the strangest thing that's happened here during my tenure," she began, trying to put the woman at ease.

"You're telling me," she commented.

Elizabeth gave her a wry smile. "You'll have to forgive us. This is out of the ordinary even for the SGC, but I imagine you knew that already."

"Yeah, it's not every day there's a blinding flash of light in my lab and everyone around me disappears."

Elizabeth leaned back, away from the table. "So do you have any idea how you ended up here?" she asked. "Jonas thinks you're from an alternate reality, but the quantum mirror was destroyed years ago."

"It's the only explanation I can think of."

"The mirror?"

"No, another reality."

"But how?" Elizabeth asked. "This doesn't make much sense to me."

Sam shrugged. "I've never believed that the quantum mirror was the only way to travel between realities," she replied. With a wry smile, she added, "I guess I found another way."

"Can you reproduce it to send yourself home?" Sam hesitated, and Elizabeth sighed. "I know what you're thinking, Sam. I know protocol says that you're not supposed to tell me anything, because you don't know if you can trust me. But I think we're going to have to trust each other a little if we're going to get you back to the right reality."

The blonde woman took a deep breath. "It was an accident. The machine wasn't supposed to do this." She paused. "I don't know if I can reproduce it."

"Machine?"

Sam hesitated again, but after a look of mild censure from Elizabeth, she capitulated. "Are you familiar with the planet Vyus?"

"Vyus," Elizabeth repeated. "That was the planet where Linea released a toxin causing a reverse in aging in the population, along with amnesia."

Sam nodded. "And then she agreed to have her own memory blocked, and went back to the planet using the name Ke'ra," she replied. "She came to us a few days ago, asking for help with a translation on a device she'd found."

"And?"

"And Daniel translated the text and–"

"Daniel?" Elizabeth interrupted, eyes wide. "Daniel Jackson?"

Sam nodded in bemusement. "He's dead in this reality, isn't he?"

"Essentially," she replied. "He ascended three years ago."

"He did in my reality too, but he came back," Sam said, trailing off.

Elizabeth reached across the table and squeezed her hand. "I'm sorry. This must be difficult for you," she said softly. "Please, tell me what happened with the device."

"We thought it was a power source," Sam replied. "And who knows, maybe it was. Maybe we didn't calibrate it correctly. We turned it on, it produced an EM field, there was a flash of light, and I found myself alone in my lab."

"In a different reality."

"Yeah."

Elizabeth took a deep breath. "I'm not a scientist, Colonel, so I'm afraid this is all very foreign to me. How is this even remotely possible? Why were you the only one who ended up here?"

She looked pensive for a moment. "I was holding the controller," she said. "That's the only thing I can think of right now."

"Controller?"

"The guards took it from me when they brought me here."

"I see."

There was a long pause before Sam spoke again. "May I ask you something, Doctor Weir?"

"Certainly, Colonel."

"How did I..."

"How did you die in this reality?" Elizabeth finished for her. Sam nodded. "You were captured by hostiles during an exploratory mission, about a month ago," Elizabeth answered. "You were tortured brutally. We mounted a rescue attempt and lost seven men to get you home." She paused. "You didn't make it to the gate."

Sam's face turned ashen. Elizabeth didn't want to think about it, to be honest. It was the one part of her job she truly hated, sending people off and being completely unsure of whether or not they'd make it back. She didn't know what drove people like Carter to make a life of that uncertainty. Often she wondered if she'd be able to make that leap of faith herself.

She stood from the table. "I'll have the SFs escort you down to the infirmary," she said. "We probably ought to let Doctor Fraiser take a look at you. In the meantime, I have several phone calls of a bizarre nature to make."

As Sam stood and exited the room with her, Elizabeth thought she almost saw a smile.

* * *

  
The infirmary was surreal in its familiarity, and Sam almost wished it were drastically different. If the walls were all purple or something, she wouldn't have been nearly as able to forget that she was in the very wrong place. But the beds were all in the right places, the walls were the correct boring shade of grey – the only difference was that Janet was there, commanding practically everything on the base.

Teal'c had asked her once who Napoleon was, and after a more-or-less concise explanation, she had asked him why he'd wanted to know. Jack had apparently referred to Janet as a "Napoleonic power-monger," and Sam found the description more than apt. She was like a general on a hill – a very short general, but one nonetheless. Nothing escaped her notice, and she seemed to get a thrill out of her job, despite its complexities and danger.

Janet took her appearance in the infirmary quite well, all things considered. Sam didn't think she was that good a judge, though, because seeing her friend – any version of her friend – alive was something she'd never be prepared for. It was like seeing Daniel alive all over again.

Suddenly she remembered. Daniel wasn't alive to these people.

She was getting used to the shocked looks people were giving her, but she wasn't used to Janet's silence. Finally, as she was injecting a needle in Sam's arm to draw blood, the doctor said, "I know – I know you're not her, but we've missed you."

Sam wondered if she should return the sentiment, but decided that it was probably best not to dump everything on these people at once. She knew quite well how disconcerting it was to find out that, had things gone differently in her own reality, she would be dead.

Janet didn't say anything else, though once or twice Sam heard a suspicious sniffle. She began to think of Jack, too, and the fact that no one had told her what had happened to him. Was he still around the SGC? Had he retired to his fishing cabin? What if... What if he were dead too?

Fortunately, before that train of thought could go much further, Jonas came into the infirmary, laden with folders and notebooks. "Hi, Colonel," he greeted, with cheerfulness that seemed a little forced. "I was just down seeing Doctor Weir. She wanted me to talk with you about some of this stuff."

"What is it?" Sam asked.

"The research you and I – well, our you and I did on alternate realities during the last year," he replied. "We kept finding references to things like the quantum mirror and other devices built by the Ancients. They were really obsessed with it."

Sam frowned. "I haven't done anything like this in my reality."

"What have you been doing?"

"Fighting the Goa'uld?" she suggested.

"Really," said Jonas. "They're still a threat for you?"

Sam blinked and leaned back. "They're not for you?"

Janet cleared her throat and gave Jonas a somewhat stern look. "I think that's something you should leave for Doctor Weir to explain, Jonas," she said.

"Right," he replied. "Anyway, I figured we could look through this stuff and see if there's any explanation for how you got here."

Sam opened her mouth to reply, but she was interrupted by the sudden blaring of klaxons and a technician's voice announcing, "Unscheduled off-world activation! Medical team to the gate room!"

Janet looked up with an expression of concern. She touched Sam's arm briefly and ran out, and Sam looked at Jonas. "Any idea?"

He looked uncertain. "I probably shouldn't speculate," he said, which she took to mean that he probably shouldn't say even if he knew.

Sam didn't ask any more questions as they waited, and Jonas started flipping through a file. She was pretty sure he had it memorized already, but he seemed to like the feel of paper and the look of words. They sat in silence, and Sam observed the minutiae of the room, until they heard the sounds of people coming toward the infirmary.

Janet was barking out commands long before she came through the door, carefully balanced on the gurney, hovering over a patient. Sam had often wondered if her whole reason for staying with the SGC was so she could do that whenever possible, without a superior telling her it was unsafe. Janet was small enough that it wasn't much of an issue for her. Well, except for the fact that she'd chosen to wear a skirt today.

The doctor jumped down as soon as they'd stopped. Sam stayed where she was, knowing better than to get in the way of a medical emergency, and through the commotion she could see a badly injured man being hooked up to all kinds of monitors. She looked to the fringes and saw a man who looked vaguely familiar, handsome, with dark, dark hair and a look of intense concern on his face. Probably the wounded man's commanding officer.

Doctor Weir returned a few moments later. "Doctor Frasier," she said, "what's his condition?"

By then the tumult was subsiding. "Stabilizing," Janet replied. "There's some damage to the spinal cord, I think. We may have to call in a specialist."

Weir nodded. "Let me know when you've made a decision." She turned to the man who'd looked familiar to Sam. "John, I sent you to propose a trade agreement with the Mercolians," she said. "What did you do to them?"

"See, why does it always have to be my fault?" the man (apparently John) replied. "Why can't it just be that some people just plain don't like us?"

"Because when SG-2 made contact three weeks ago, they were happy to see us!" said Weir. "Clearly we need to get you lessons in diplomacy."

"Who's going to teach me, you?" he replied. Sam ducked her head, trying not to laugh at the exchange. "Besides," John continued, "I don't know about you, but when I see people with staff weapons, I tend to panic a little."

Weir looked sharply at Janet, who was still working with her patient. "Doctor Fraiser, was this done with a staff weapon?" she asked.

"That or something like it," Janet replied. "Shot in the back."

"Now, are those the kinds of people you want to start trading with?" John asked of Weir.

"What would you rather have, people who shoot you in the face?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I would."

Elizabeth sighed. "We'll debrief at 1600," she said. "You've got twenty minutes to figure out how to tell me how you screwed up."

"Fine," said John. Then, finally, he looked in Sam's direction. She didn't bother trying to avoid his gaze. He stared at her in abject confusion, then turned back to Weir. "Elizabeth," he said, "Colonel Carter is sitting on that examination bed."

"Oh, I forgot about her."

"You _forgot_ about her? She's supposed to be dead!"

Weir dismissed the comment. "John, you just lucked out. You've got till 1630 to get your story straight. Colonel Carter, why don't you come with me to the briefing room?" she said. As Sam stood up to go, Weir added, "Jonas, get Sarah and bring her down."

Sam passed John as she left with Weir and wondered why he so obviously seemed to know her, and where she recognized him from. As soon as they were a few feet away from the infirmary, she asked, "Doctor Weir, who was that?"

Weir looked at her in surprise. "John Sheppard," she replied. "He served under you on SG-1 for a year. He's the commander of SG-17 now."

Now she remembered him. John Sheppard, in her reality, was on the Atlantis expedition in the Pegasus galaxy, as was Elizabeth Weir, if they were still alive. It had been months since the Atlantis team had left, and the total lack of contact from them led many at the SGC to believe that a lot of good men and women had been lost.

As they stepped into the elevator and turned around to face the corridor from which they'd just come, they saw Sheppard running after them. "Wait!" he called. Weir pushed a button on the panel to hold the door open for him. He seemed a little surprised at her courtesy. "Thank you," he said, with a little exaggeration.

"Do you need something?" she asked.

"Figured I'd tag along, since you didn't even try to explain where she came from," he replied, jabbing his thumb in Sam's direction. "This is going to be one briefing that's just too damn weird to miss."

"Glad you think so," Weir said dryly. "I'm sure Colonel Carter appreciates that."

Sheppard gave Sam that weird look again, briefly. "I don't think she knows me," he said. "She hasn't said one word to me."

"I'm right here," Sam said. "You don't have to talk about me in third person."

"Well, we kind of got used to talking about you in third person lately." Weir glared at him for that.

They arrived on Level 27 then and walked to the briefing room, Weir leading the way. Lieutenant Elliot was standing at the head of the table. "Doctor Weir," he said, "I wanted to ask what's going on with Colonel Carter."

"Ask her yourself," said Weir as Sam entered behind Sheppard.

"I'm fine," Sam stated simply.

"Feeling better, Elliot?" John asked.

"Yes, sir," the young man replied. "Doctor Fraiser said it was just a forty-eight-hour bug. Sorry to have missed the mission. I heard there was some excitement."

"I'm sorry you missed it too, Lieutenant," Weir said as she shifted some papers around on the table. "You might have prevented that excitement."

"Are you going to make him teach me diplomacy, Doctor?" Sheppard asked.

Weir opened her mouth to say something, but then seemed to think better of it. "You just got back, Colonel Sheppard. Why don't you get out of your gear, get a shower, and then come back?"

"Nah, I'm good."

"No, really. A shower."

He gave her an exaggerated salute and a cocky grin. "Yes, ma'am."

As soon as Sheppard had left, Weir gave Sam a look of exasperated sympathy. "Yes, he was this bad when he was under your command," she supplied.

Sam smiled a little. "Are we waiting on Jonas?" she asked.

"Yes, they should be down any minute now," Elizabeth replied. "Might as well wait for them before we start any serious discussion."

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

  
Sarah Gardner probably knew better than anyone at the SGC that things in the galaxy could be far more dangerous than they seemed. So when Jonas brought her the news that Sam Carter was somehow alive, she was far more skeptical than she would ever admit. Things like that just didn't happen.

Jonas was saying something about alternate realities, which reminded Sarah vaguely of a Michael Crichton novel. However, she figured that if this person who'd shown up was really Colonel Carter, she'd have more than enough explanation by the end of the day.

The group assembled in the briefing room were three of the usual crowd. There was a team of people whom Elizabeth referred to as her cabinet – a mix of experts from different fields, both military and civilian, to whom Doctor Weir would turn for advice, and those in the briefing room were some of the people upon whom she relied. Seated at Elizabeth's right hand was a blonde woman who could be no other than Samantha Carter.

She looked up at Sarah with an expression brimming with questions. Of course, this didn't set her apart from anyone else in the room. "Oh, good, Jonas, Sarah, you're here," said Elizabeth. "We can get started."

Jonas sat down between Sam and Hayden Elliot, so Sarah took the seat next to Sheppard. As they all settled in, Sarah noticed that John's hair was all wet. "Was it raining on the planet?" she asked quietly.

"Nope, it was hot and sunny," he answered. "Doctor Weir _politely_ requested that I take a shower."

Elizabeth ignored the remark, wisely. "Well, you all know why we're here," she began. "According to the information Colonel Carter has provided, she's here from another reality. As far as I understand, this means that we need to figure out a way to send her home."

"Sorry, Elizabeth," Sarah said, "but Colonel, why can't you go back the way you came?"

"It was an accident caused by an artifact that was brought here – there by one of our allies," Sam replied. "I have no idea how to reproduce it. For that matter, I don't even know where she found it."

"So why can't you just stay here?" Colonel Sheppard asked.

"Entropic cascade failure," Sam said. "It's a temporal distortion caused by existing in a reality other than your own. In a way, it's fortunate that I ended up in a reality where the home version of me was already dead."

"Come again?" Sheppard said.

"The temporal distortion should take years rather than days," Jonas supplied. "That was what the other Doctor Carter hypothesized, and then we found more evidence suggesting that when we were researching alternate realities last year."

"Which means I have some time to figure something out," Sam continued. "It's not quite as desperate as it would have seemed, given our previous experience with this kind of thing."

Sarah picked up a pen and tested it on a sheet of paper in front of her. "Have you any idea of the artifact's origins?" she asked. "Could you identify its cultural source?"

"It was Ancient," said Sam. "Daniel said the inscriptions were in an incredibly obscure dialect. He wasn't completely confident in the translation of it."

At the mention of Daniel's name, Sarah flinched, as though a blinding light was suddenly focused on her eyes. She heard her name, but it wasn't spoken by anyone in the room. She heard Daniel begging, pleading for her to stop Osiris, because it was him, Daniel, not an enemy. He was trying to help her, if she could only stop the ribbon device–

"Doctor?"

The less-than-gentle shove John Sheppard gave her was more helpful than his saying anything to her. She snapped out of it and opened her eyes. "You okay?" he said.

"Yes, I'm fine," Sarah replied, a little breathless.

"What was it this time?" Elizabeth asked, a look of deep concern on her face.

"Daniel," she said. "When SG-1 got me out."

Sheppard frowned. He was the only one in the room who really knew what that meant – that she had been killing him with her own hands, but by then Osiris was starting to lose control. Sarah had been crying as she drained life from Daniel, and it had been enough of a distraction for Osiris that SG-1 had been able to capture her. John Sheppard, on his very first mission, had knocked her to the ground and wrestled the ribbon device away from her. Despite the curses that Osiris was forcing her to call down on him, she could have kissed him.

"Not now," she said, touching John's hand. "My apologies, Doctor Weir."

Sam turned a very confused look to Elizabeth. "What just happened?"

"The process of forcibly removing a symbiote from a host is very dangerous," Weir replied. "When the Tok'ra removed Osiris from Doctor Gardner, some damage was done to her memory. She remembered enough to give us some very valuable intelligence concerning the Goa'uld, but not even the Tok'ra memory devices could access some things. Occasionally something triggers a memory that Osiris tried to bury."

"You had a similar experience when Jolinar died, didn't you?" Jonas asked.

"Yes, except Jolinar wasn't trying to hide anything from me," said Sam. "She just died before her memories were blended with my conscious memory."

"Osiris was indiscriminate about what he blocked," Sarah said, quietly. "I still can't remember the name of my second form maths teacher."

"That's okay, I don't remember much of sixth grade either," John said. "Didn't take a Goa'uld to block those memories."

Sarah laughed a little. "The point is, that happens from time to time. It's been less frequent lately."

Then Sarah heard voices in the corridor, and an SF entered. "Excuse me, Doctor Weir," she said. "He's here."

"Show him in," Elizabeth replied.

Jack's voice entered the room long before his person did. "Look, Doc, I've told you half a dozen times, I'm not comin'–"

When his eyes rested on Sam, his words and steps halted in unison. Since her return to Earth, Sarah had spent a lot of time with Jack, especially after they had lost Daniel. But not since the moment Jack had learned of Sam's death had she seen him so shocked. The dark circles under his eyes had been there for a month, but now they were accentuated by the horrified look on his face.

"No," he said, shaking his head slowly. "No, that's not her. That's not my wife."

Sam's eyes went wide. "Wife?" she whispered.

"No one is saying she is, Jack. Just take a seat, please," Weir serenely interjected.

"No," he replied. "Why the hell did you call me? I buried her a month ago!"

"Because you needed to be told, and I thought it would be easier to tell you in person instead of over the phone," Elizabeth replied. "Just sit down and we'll explain everything to you."

* * *

  
Sam was still gripping the arms of her chair when the briefing was finally over. Doctor Weir seemed to have forgotten that John Sheppard was supposed to explain some things to her, because he filed out of the room with Sarah, and Elizabeth did nothing to stop him. Sam, meanwhile, just sat there.

In her reality, both experiences with alternate realities involved her and Jack together – the first time they were engaged, and the second time the other version of her was recently widowed. She'd half-expected to hear something about them having been together, but since she'd clearly been in the military until her death in this reality, she hadn't expected that the other version of them had been married.

It was like the grand scheme of things was trying to tell her something.

"Colonels," Doctor Weir said, "would you mind waiting for a moment? Sheppard is trying to sneak away from his briefing, and I need to track him down."

Both Sam and Jack nodded, and Weir left. The silence in her wake was uncomfortable, to say the least, until Jack finally said, "You can pry your fingers off the armrests, Sam."

She blinked several times and let out a long, quiet breath as she did so. At his quizzical glance, she responded, "I'm not used to you calling me that."

"Oh." He paused. "Really? 'Cause I would have thought..." He gestured between the two of them.

Sam shook her head. "We haven't defeated the Goa'uld yet."

"Well, that sucks."

"You're a general, though," she added.

Jack shrugged, indifferently. "I can't imagine being chained to a desk."

There was a long and heavy silence, and Sam quietly said, "Sir, if it makes you feel better, this isn't comfortable for me either."

"Carter, how the hell is that supposed to make me feel better?"

She didn't get a chance to answer. Doctor Weir entered with John Sheppard in tow then. She gave Sam and Jack a distracted smile. "I spoke with President Hayes earlier, Colonel Carter," she said. "He said that as long as Doctor Fraiser's tests come back without any problems, I can give you clearance to make yourself useful here until we can find a way to send you home. But for now I'm afraid I'm going to have to keep you in confinement."

Sam nodded. "Understandable."

Weir looked up at one of the guards at the entrance. "Sergeant, could you escort Colonel Carter to the VIP room?"

He nodded, and Sam stood up, reluctant for reasons she didn't quite see. The sergeant gestured to the door. "After you, ma'am," he said.

She didn't need his direction to the room. But when he shut the door behind her, the bizarreness of the situation finally sank in and she started to shake. Now that there was time to think, she wondered what was going on back home, and how she was going to get back.

* * *

  
As soon as John and Elizabeth entered her office, the red phone rang, so he was obliged to stand there and listen to her repeatedly say, "Yes, sir, Mr. President, I understand, Mr. President." He looked prodigiously bored throughout the brief conversation, which made her glad that he'd likely never end up in charge of this phone.

"I wonder what that was about," he said as she hung up.

"Very funny, Colonel," she replied. "When I talked with the President earlier, he had something else come up. He wanted to know more about the situation now."

"You mean the weird-as-hell alternate reality thing?"

"Colonel," she said, in mild reprimand.

"Sorry, ma'am." He cleared his throat. "So what do you want to know?"

Elizabeth sat behind her desk and gestured to a chair. "Take a seat," she said. "What happened with the Mercolians?"

"Nothing," John replied, sitting down. "We got the trade agreement all worked out. They were thrilled about it. Then we were coming back to the gate to talk to you about the terms, and I guess a bunch of Jaffa showed up and started shooting at us."

"Jaffa?" Elizabeth replied. "Did you see whose Jaffa they were?"

"Doctor," he said, with a touch of exasperation, "Matthews got shot in the back."

She narrowed her eyes, and he leaned back. "Did you leave a radio with the Mercolians?" John nodded. "Well, we can try contacting them, but I'm not sending another group there until we've determined that it's safe. Lieutenant Hailey has been tinkering with the latest UAV prototype. I'll get her to send it down to the gate room."

John shook his head. "I hadn't had to shoot at a Jaffa since Teal'c left."

"I know," Elizabeth replied. "He and the free Jaffa have been bearing the brunt of the cleanup, but they wanted to take care of the threat of the pocket cells of Jaffa still resisting the change." She sighed. "I'm a little surprised you ran into trouble. Teal'c's usually been quite good at sending intel so we don't have this kind of problem all the time."

He nodded. "Especially with the number of civilians we've been sending out with teams lately."

"Well," she replied, "I think we can safely assume that Captain Matthews is going to be on medical leave for a while. However, I think it would be prudent for you, Lieutenant Elliot, and Doctor Collier to head to Chulak and talk with Teal'c."

John stood up and nodded. "Just tell me when."

"Go to the infirmary first," Elizabeth said. "Check on Captain Matthews." She looked through the window into the next room. "Jack's still in the briefing room. He's probably been listening to every word we've said, so I should talk to him."

He turned to the door and gave her a little wave. "Have fun with that."

Elizabeth took a deep breath as he left. When she looked through the window again, she saw Jack watching her. She walked slowly into the briefing room, knowing there was no need to postpone this, but wishing there was.

"Jaffa?" he said as she reached the table.

"Yes," Elizabeth replied, taking the seat next to him. "We don't know much about it yet." She glanced up at him. "Did you know there's actually paperwork on this?" she asked. "There's a form to fill out when someone encounters an alternate reality."

"Let's cut the crap, Doc," Jack said abruptly. "What were you thinking?"

"You were going to find out eventually," she said, trying to stay calm. "I wanted you to find out from me, not from Sarah Gardner."

He stiffened a little. "Sarah doesn't tell me that much."

"Sarah doesn't run into a different version of your dead wife every day, either," said Elizabeth. "I couldn't expect her to keep this from you, especially when she may be stuck here."

"What are you suggesting, Elizabeth?"

She touched his hand, but he withdrew his quickly. "You didn't get to say goodbye to Sam," she said, gently. "None of us did."

"So what are you saying?" he asked. "That I should pretend this one's my wife until she goes through that cascading entropy thing and I have to lose her all over again?" His voice broke, much to Elizabeth's surprise. "No thanks. I've given enough for my country."

"I'm sorry if I hurt you," she said. "I assure you, that was not my intention."

"You still think you did the right thing."

She nodded.

Jack stood. "I lost my best friend and my wife to this place," he said. "You'll have to forgive me if I just don't give a damn anymore."

He turned and walked out, and Elizabeth didn't try to stop him. In a way, he was right. He'd given more to this program than anyone else, and he had every right to apathy. But as she sat in the briefing room, waiting for John to return, she wondered what would have happened had she pointed out that Jack had only met Daniel and Sam because of this place, which he now seemed to despise.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

  
When SG-1 rescued her from Osiris, Sarah had some difficulty readjusting to normal life. Going back to work at the University of Chicago was out of the question. Not only was she aware of hundreds, maybe thousands of misconceptions about the field of egyptology which she couldn't divulge to the world at large, she couldn't explain why she'd disappeared for over a year. General Hammond had been kind enough to offer her a position as a resident archaeologist at the SGC, and it hadn't taken much for her to accept it.

There were times in those first few months when she thought she couldn't handle the stress of even the simplest tasks, like laundry and grocery shopping. If it hadn't been for Daniel, she was sure she wouldn't have got through it. He was there as much as he could be, and Sarah was quick to open up to him again.

And then, less than three months after her return to Earth, Daniel had shown his quality, dying to save another planet. His death nearly crushed her. She knew that he hadn't really _died_ , but he wasn't there. He wasn't there to make her laugh when she couldn't handle it anymore.

They all tried to go on with life. Jonas Quinn, convinced by Sam to defect to Earth, joined SG-1. Teal'c went back to Chulak, his people freed. Sam and Jack, who were already engaged before Daniel's ascension, decided not to postpone their wedding, feeling that Daniel wouldn't have wanted them to. So three weeks after the events of Kelowna, Sam had come into what had been Daniel's lab, asking for Sarah's opinion on something for the wedding.

It had been a godsend, because Sam had let Sarah help with the planning. Wedding preparations had been enough of a distraction for Sarah to grieve the loss without losing control. Jack and Sam started inviting her over for dinner frequently, and together the three of them made it through.

Sam and Jack had been disgustingly happy in the two years of their marriage. Jack was basking in the glory of retirement, while Sam commanded SG-1. They were talking about having children. Then, a month ago had come the terrible news: Sam had been captured during a hostile encounter, and three days later John Sheppard and Hayden Elliot carried her body back through the gate.

Something in Jack seemed to die with her. For one who had lost so much, it didn't seem fair to Sarah that Jack should lose Sam too. Hadn't he given enough?

He tried to shut everything out, but Sarah took it upon herself not to let him. Yes, Sam was dead, but that didn't mean he could stop living. So a couple times a week Sarah would let herself into his house with the key Sam had once given her, cooking a meal for him or bringing a movie to watch. It was meaningless on the surface, but she knew that if she didn't hold on to him, he'd slip further and further away until there was nothing left but grief and bitterness.

Sarah stood waiting in the briefing room, thinking and watching idly through the window as Elizabeth Weir spoke on the red telephone. She'd been in contact with the President a lot over the last twenty-four hours, which didn't surprise Sarah in the slightest. Elizabeth noted her presence in the briefing room with a nod and finished up her conversation. "Sarah, is there something you need?" she asked upon leaving her office.

Sarah took a deep breath. "Doctor, I'd like permission to take Colonel Carter off the base for the afternoon."

Elizabeth looked a little surprised. "Why?"

"She's got nothing to do here," Sarah replied. "Granted, she won't have much to do outside, but it's better to be bored somewhere other than a small room with grey concrete walls."

The program director looked skeptical. "She's supposed to be dead, Doctor," Elizabeth replied. "She could be seen."

"I've already thought of something to do about that," said Sarah. "I doubt anyone will notice her."

Elizabeth sighed, but did not ask Sarah how she intended to hide Sam. "Why do you want to do this, Sarah?"

"I know Jack O'Neill, Elizabeth," Sarah replied. "If we let him, he'll try to leave Colonel Carter out in the dark forever. And if this Sam really is stranded here, it isn't fair to her." She took a deep breath. "Besides, I have a big debt to repay to Jack."

Elizabeth was silent for a long time, softly clicking her fingernails on the desk. At last she looked up, resigned. "Have you talked with her yet?" she asked.

Sarah shook her head. "I thought it would be best to have permission first."

Weir picked up a pen and looked down at a paper before her. "If she wants to go, take her," she said. "And get her some clothes other than BDUs."

Thus endorsed, Sarah went on her way to the VIP room, a small duffel bag in hand. She'd anticipated Elizabeth's request that Sarah get Sam civilian clothing, and had brought with her some of her own clothes. She'd picked out something which wouldn't emphasize the three-inch difference in their heights, nor make Sam look like she was trying to replace this reality's version of her. The last thing Jack needed was to think that Sarah was setting him up with a clone of his late wife.

The guards let her into the VIP room, where Sam did not protest Sarah's uninvited entrance. She was reading a book that had been brought for her. Sarah stood near the door uncertainly. "Colonel, I was wondering if you wanted to leave the base," she said.

Sam looked up from her book, surprised. "I didn't think I'd get an opportunity," she replied, carefully.

"I think our management is a bit different than yours," Sarah said. "Doctor Weir has authorized me to take you out of the mountain for a few hours today. I thought you might like the change in scenery."

Her book set aside, Sam stood up and faced Sarah. "Where?"

"Jack's."

Sam's face turned a little paler, and her eyes widened. "Is that such a good idea?"

Sarah gave her a small smile. "Probably not," she said, "but very few ideas involving Jack are."

In typical Carter style, she stifled a giggle, looking down. When she'd recovered, she said, "Yeah, you're probably right."

Sarah held out the duffel bag. "You might want to change," she suggested. "You didn't wear fatigues all the time, but you'll just look less conspicuous in the neighborhood if you're wearing civilian clothes."

Sam took the bag a little warily. "All right," she said.

She stood there, glancing uncertainly at Sarah. The other version of Sam wouldn't have had a problem with changing clothes in front of Sarah, but it was clear that this version didn't know her at all. "I'll step outside."

Once on the other side of the door, Sarah let out a long breath. It was like the part of her brain that set off alarms whenever irrational events occurred had been turned off. Certainly, she'd got used to odd things happening, but Sarah was beginning to question her mental stability, because she was dealing with this far too calmly.

* * *

  
Sam didn't really know what she was thinking as she changed out of her BDUs and into the clothes Sarah had provided. There was a brown calf-length skirt and a white sweater, along with appropriate shoes. It was nothing remarkable, and Sam was glad of that. She didn't want to look like she was dressing up for Jack.

By the time she'd changed, and smoothed her hand across the soft material of the skirt a few hundred times, she was almost convinced that she ought to tell Sarah that she'd changed her mind. But when it came down to it, she couldn't say no. She'd spent almost every day of the last eight years with Jack O'Neill. To consciously turn down an opportunity to spend a little time with him just didn't feel right. So she went along.

Sarah Gardner, it turned out, drove a red Volkwagen Bug, which for reasons not apparent to Sam was half-filled with mylar Winnie the Pooh balloons. "Going to a birthday party?" Sam asked as Sarah unlocked the car doors with the remote.

Sarah laughed a little. "No, these are for you," she said.

Sam raised a brow. "Me?"

The other woman nodded, getting into the car and pulling some of them away from the passenger seat so Sam could get in as well. "When was the last time you looked at the face of someone carrying a dozen balloons?"

"True." Sam took the strings from Sarah, trying to pull the balloons down out of Sarah's vision field. "Is this safe?"

Sarah paused, one hand on the steering wheel, one on the stick. "Probably not." She gave Sam a smile.

They started off, and Sam eventually had to hold a rather large Tigger balloon down to keep it out of her face as they sped through the streets of Colorado Springs. Suddenly Sarah said, "Are the clothes fitting well enough?"

"Yeah, they're fine," Sam replied, a little surprised. "How did you know what size I wear?"

Sarah gave her a quick glance. "Those are mine," she said. "You've borrowed clothing from me before."

Sam frowned. "Why?"

The other woman laughed a little. "The first time, you were at my apartment with Jack and Daniel, and Jack ‘accidentally' spilled wine down your back," she replied. "I made him get down on his bad knees and scrub the carpet, especially when he told me that it was all my fault for wasting good wine on him in the first place."

Sam suppressed a giggle. "Sounds just like him."

Sarah gave her an odd look, but didn't say anything else for a long time. Sam supposed it was kind of an odd statement to make. It sounded just like him because it was him. But the Jack she'd seen yesterday in the briefing room was not the same Jack who'd been in her lab only two hours before that, in her reality. Her Jack had been joking with Daniel and playing with magnifying glasses, not bitter and angry.

Not that her Jack wasn't capable of it.

It was odd to be thinking of him on such terms. She didn't exactly mean it in a romantic sense, but she didn't object to the idea. Ever since she and Pete had broken up after the incident on P4X-242, Sam and Jack had been steadily opening to each other more and more. Fun, flirty moments they hadn't shared in a long time were coming back, and as they both grew into their new roles, Sam had begun to wonder about life beyond the SGC. And she wondered if that life would ever have him in it.

"Are you all right?"

Sarah's question broke her thoughts, and Sam shook her head. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said. She pushed a wayward balloon down and looked around. They were at Jack's house already.

"Well, let's go," Sarah replied, setting the emergency brake and turning the car off.

Sam felt rather silly carrying a dozen balloons up to Jack's front door, and as they walked, she suddenly began to wonder if he'd let them in at all. But when they reached the door, Sarah inserted a key into the lock and opened the door. "How'd you get a key?" she asked.

"You gave it to me." Sarah walked in and helped Sam get some of the balloons through the doorway. "I've fed Jack's fish quite a few times."

As soon as they had closed the door behind them, they heard a voice issue from the deep recesses of the house. "Sarah, I swear, I'm gonna change that lock–"

His voice stopped upon his entrance in the foyer. Sam met his eyes and almost looked away. There was a silence, heavy and potent, until Sarah took a step toward Jack, her heels clicking on the floor. "Jack," she said, "if you were really going to change the lock on me, you would have done it a long time ago." She kissed his cheek, though Jack didn't look away from Sam. "I'm going to start dinner."

Sarah left them alone then, and they just stood there for a while as the other woman started rummaging through drawers and cabinets in the kitchen. Then he took a step forward, then two, then three. "You're, ah, not the usual delivery girl," he said.

Sam looked down, smiling. "No, sir."

"Sam," he said, gently. She looked up at him, and in his eyes she saw a quiet sort of pain, muted longing and denial. " _Jack_."

She held his gaze a moment. "Jack," she repeated, barely above a whisper.

He almost smiled. "What's with the balloons?"

Sam finally broke eye contact with him, in order to glance at the strings she was clutching rather tightly in her left hand. "They were Sarah's idea," she said. "She thought people would be less likely to look at my face and recognize me if I was carrying something ridiculous."

Then in a moment too surreal for words, Jack reached up and almost touched her hair, but he seemed to think better of it and dropped his hand. "You're wearing your hair shorter than she did," he said.

What was she supposed to say to that?

He must have noticed her discomfort, because he looked away from her. "Here, I'll do something with those," he said, taking the balloons from her. "Make yourself... comfortable."

Sam looked around uncertainly. That wasn't going to happen. So she walked into the kitchen. "Sarah, can I help you with anything?" she asked.

Had Sarah been trying to play matchmaker, Sam knew she would have been kicked out of the kitchen, but as it turned out, Sarah was grateful for the help. In a little while Jack was in there too. "I hope you don't set the smoke detector off again," he said, with no preamble as he sneaked a piece of celery away from Sam's cutting board.

"That was _your_ fault," Sarah protested. "I asked you to keep an eye on it while I ran to the loo, and there you were, watching _The Simpsons_ while the sauce burned. . ."

"It was the Hank Scorpio episode," said Jack. "You couldn't really expect me to get up from that."

He took another piece of celery, despite the fact that he hadn't finished the first one. Sam eyed him warily, and he waved the celery at her. "Don't try that look on me."

"Stop eating all the food," Sarah interjected. "Sam, if he doesn't stop, you have my permission to punish him in whatever way you like."

"That sounds like it could get awkward with you in the room, Sarah."

Sam knew it was supposed to be a joke, but she froze, so used to regulations and hiding that she didn't know how to act. Eventually she turned back to her celery chopping with a vengeance. But when Jack tried to steal another piece of it, she thwapped his hand with the flat of the knife blade. "Oww! What was that for?" he cried.

"Stealing."

He looked to Sarah, a wounded expression on his face. "She's being mean to me."

Sarah looked up from the skillet, where she was cooking some chicken, and shoved a plate, a knife, and two bell peppers in his direction. She had the air of one who had played mediator for mock quarrels many times in the past. "There you are, Jack. Now you have your own food to play with."

As they continued preparing the meal (some kind of stir-fry – Sarah seemed to be making it up as she found ingredients), Sam couldn't help but wonder at the ease among the three of them. She was an outsider in truth, but Jack and Sarah didn't treat her that way. At least, Sarah didn't. Sometimes Sam would catch Jack's glance unintentionally, and there would be that pain again, growing stronger.

By the time they were sitting down at the table and eating, the conversation had turned more serious. "Weir was uncharacteristically tight-fisted with details yesterday," Jack commented, mixing some rice into the stir-fry. "Not that she closed the door to her office when she was talking with Sheppard."

"I'm not sure how much I can tell you," Sam began.

Sarah shook her head. "He still has clearance, Sam," she said. "Doctor Weir likes to call him in as an advisor from time to time."

Sam poked at her food with her fork. "It was an accident in an experiment. I'm going to have to run a few tests before I can have any real answers."

"And how long will it be before you can?" Sarah asked.

"Doctor Weir is sending SG-1 to Vyus tomorrow to see if the Ke'ra of this reality has found the same device."

"Whoa!" said Jack, his fork halfway to his mouth. " _Ke'ra_?"

It was eerily reminiscent of her Jack's reaction to the request. "I know," she said. "He said the same thing."

"Looks like we were right," he commented.

Sam tipped her head to one side. "Not necessarily. I don't think she meant any harm."

There was a short silence. "So what are you doing until SG-1 gets back?" he asked.

"Doctor Weir has given me permission to go over mission reports to find where the two realities diverged, but that could take a very long time." Sam set her fork down and sighed. "For all I know, the divergence happened on one of SG-23's missions."

"Well, that can't be right," said Jack.

"Sir?" Sam prompted.

He winced slightly at the appellation, but seemed to shrug it off a moment later. "You know, we're the good guys. We're the ones who've taken out a dozen bad guys. If this were a TV show, we'd be the main characters."

"Jack," Sarah said, smiling widely, "have you been watching _Wormhole X-Treme_ again?"

He grinned and shrugged. "What's your point?"

"If you want my opinion, which I'm sure you don't," Sarah continued, "that show has lost all interest since the main characters got married. I miss the flirtation."

"Ah, such a cynic," Jack replied. "Sam and I got a lot more interesting after we got married."

"Well, after a reception as interesting as yours was..."

Sam, more than a little uncomfortable with the topic, cleared her throat slightly, and Jack and Sarah turned back to their food. Then suddenly, Jack said, "Sam, do you like pink?"

Nonplussed, flustered, Sam stared at him, not sure what to think of the question. "Yeah," she finally replied.

"Damn."

"Sir?"

He rolled his eyes. "I always thought she picked pink as one of the colors at our wedding to spite me. Didn't think she actually liked it."

And suddenly Sam felt her throat tighten. She could imagine it–

"Sam?" said Sarah. "Are you quite well?"

She shook her head as though to clear it. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Sarah gave her a soft smile before turning her attention back to her food. "I still say it was you who spiked the punch, Jack."

He rolled his eyes. "I was a little busy getting married, Sarah," he retorted. "I still say it was Teal'c."

Sam dropped her fork and closed her eyes. This had suddenly gotten a lot more difficult than she had expected.

"Sam?" Sarah was touching her arm.

Her voice was light and breathy when she spoke. "I'm just going to run to the bathroom."

She stood from the table without another word. Perhaps it was just the stress of the situation – after all, she was quite possibly stranded in this reality – but when she reached the bathroom she was shaking, her breaths uneven. Was this what she had missed? Comfortable dinners with Jack and easy conversation? A time when the greatest of her worries was what flowers her bridesmaids would carry?

She looked at herself in the mirror and was surprised to see tear streaks on her cheeks. Taking a shaky breath, she wiped at her eyes with the heels of her palms. She didn't know why she'd be crying anyway. It must have been the stress, and the surreality of everything around her. Once or twice over the years she had wondered what it would have been like for Daniel all those years ago, and now she knew, caught in a place so familiar and yet so strange, in a body that meant something different to those around her than it did to herself.

But despite the strangeness, there was comfort in her surroundings. She'd been in this room before, but it hadn't looked like this. This looked like the way she would have decorated the room. At least, the accessories all matched, which was not something Jack was known for. There was even a half-spent candle next to the sink, though Sam suspected it had not been lit in some time. Probably not since the other Sam's death.

Was this what she was missing? Putting towels that matched the shower curtain that matched the rug in Jack's bathroom? Buying pink clothes to annoy him, but knowing that he loved her in whatever she wore?

Was it companionship? Love?

And if things had been different, she could have been here – she could have known.

* * *

  
Sarah watched Sam leave the room a little faster than decorum would usually allow, and she turned back as Jack dropped his fork and rested his forehead on his hands. "Jack?" she said, touching his arm.

"This was a bad idea," he muttered. "Bad, bad idea."

Sarah didn't know what to say, so she waited several minutes, until Jack sniffed loudly and looked up. "She looks just like her," he said. "Acts just like her. But she's not _her_."

"I know, Jack," Sarah replied, taking his hand in hers. "I just thought it would be best if you didn't ignore the fact that she's here. Daniel's alive in her reality, did you know? It must be hard enough for her that he's dead here. You shouldn't be dead to her too."

He didn't say anything, so Sarah went into the living room and grabbed one of the balloons. When she came back in, he had picked up his fork again, but wasn't eating. "Now, you know I've never forgiven Disney for what they did to Winnie the Pooh, but I think this makes my point," she said, holding it in front of his face.

"It's Pooh stuck in Rabbit's house," he replied, poking it skeptically with his fork.

"Yes," she said. "Remember, you could always be worse off. You could be stuck in the front door."

Jack started laughing weakly. Sarah tied the balloon to the back of his chair and kissed the top of his head, then ruffled his hair. "You'll survive, Jack," she said. "You always have."

* * *

  
Sam washed her face before returning to the dining room, hoping it wasn't too obvious that she had been crying. Sarah was clearing away the dishes, but had left Sam's plate untouched. "I didn't know if you were finished," she said. "There's ice cream."

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sam replied. "It was very good."

Sarah picked up the plate, only half cleared, and balanced it on top of the stack of dishes she was carrying. "Jack, why don't you come and take care of the ice cream while I clean up the kitchen?" she said.

Jack looked at Sam and rolled his eyes. "A servant in my own house," he said. While she quietly laughed, he said, "No, you don't need to offer to help. Go hang out in the front room. Transcending realities really takes a lot out of you."

He sauntered away, his chin high, and Sam turned to go the other way, into the living room. It was at roughly the same stage of controlled panic in which she had always seen it, but it looked different. It took her a while to figure out, but eventually she realized that it was because her own belongings were mixed in. Her books were on the shelves. Her chairs were on one side of the coffee table. And there were pictures of her. There had never been pictures of her in this house.

She found herself staring at one in particular for a long time. It was a photo from the wedding. Jack and the other Sam were laughing, running as the guests threw rice at them. Teal'c was holding open the door of the limousine. Jack was in dress blues, Sam in an off-the-shoulders gown. There were Dad, General Hammond, Janet, a younger Cassandra, and Sarah too. They all looked so happy.

And as she looked at it, Sam couldn't help but feel sad. In a lot of ways, she was horribly, horribly envious of someone who had once been her, but through a twist of fate had gotten everything she wanted.

"Hey," said Jack, from behind her. "You want this?" Sam looked over her shoulder to see him holding two bowls of ice cream. "It's chocolate."

"Yeah, why not," Sam replied, taking one of them from him. "Thanks."

He looked past her, to the photo she'd been studying. "That was a good day," he said. "Despite... despite not having Daniel there, we were happy."

"I can tell," she quietly said. She'd never seen him smile like he smiled in that picture.

"Listen," he began, awkwardly, "about yesterday..."

"What?"

"I'm sorry." He didn't look at her as he spoke. "None of this is your fault."

"It's all right, sir."

"We've been over this, Sam," he said, a little more firmly. "I am not your commanding officer."

There was another pause, in which Sam realized that neither of them had touched their ice cream. She cleared her throat. "Do you wish I hadn't ended up here, Jack?" she asked.

He waited to answer until her eyes met his. "I remember the science," he said. "You can't stay here forever."

She took a deep breath. "No."

"I told that guy on 639 – Malakai? – that I couldn't live through Charlie's death again," Jack continued. "I don't think I could live through Samantha Carter dying again either."

She noticed that he didn't equate her with his late wife, and she was glad of that. It made things less complicated. Sarah came in a little while later and found them still standing at opposite ends of the coffee table. She got them to sit down, and for the next hour they talked of anything but the most salient issue. When Sarah and Sam rose to leave, Jack walked them to the door, but there was no mention of doing this again. Sam found the uncertainty strangely comforting and yet she wasn't certain if she wanted to get comfortable in this reality or not. After all, with any luck she'd be leaving again in a matter of days.

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

  
The next morning, Sam awoke with the feeling that she'd had the strangest dream, but she couldn't remember any of it. She lay in bed for a while, wondering what she was going to do today and hoping she'd have something with which to relieve her boredom. Then a knock came at the door, and a medic told her that Janet wanted to see her in the infirmary for a couple more tests.

She showered and dressed as quickly as she could, and then made her way down to Level 21. Janet was checking a patient's pulse as she walked in. "Oh, good morning, Sam," she said, laying the man's arm back down on the bed. "Thanks for coming so quickly."

"Yeah, no problem," Sam replied. "What did you need me for?"

"I need to get another blood sample for a test I want to run," said Janet. "And then there were a couple of things I wanted to talk with you about, concerning the results from the tests the other day."

"What, I'm not in perfect health?" Sam asked, pushing her sleeve up.

"No, you're fine," the doctor replied, laughing as she tied elastic around Sam's upper arm. "You're also a perfect genetic match to the Samantha Carter who was here. There's no variance like there was when the Asgard cloned Jack."

"That happened here too?"

"Yeah, you got a bit of a shock when you woke up next to a fifteen-year-old."

Sam blinked several times, trying to imagine how she would have reacted to that. The only appropriate reaction she could come up with was to have fallen off the bed in shock. Fortunately, Janet chose to inject the needle before Sam could think much more than that.

"I was surprised by your blood work," Janet said, giving the blood sample to a passing medic to be taken to the lab. "I wasn't expecting you to be on birth control."

Sam shrugged. "It helps regulate things," she said, "and until about a month ago I was seeing someone."

Janet looked up, surprised. "Did Jack do something stupid?"

Sam felt her cheeks warm. "We've never been together, in my reality," she said, shifting uncomfortably. "He's in command of the SGC now."

"Oh." Janet put her hands in her coat pockets. "Well, we'll keep you on it while you're here. No sense in breaking up your routine." She sighed. "The other version of you had just gone off birth control here not long before..."

"Doctor Fraiser," came a woman's voice from the entrance. Sam had to look to see that it was Doctor Weir. She wasn't accustomed to her voice yet. "Can we talk with Colonel Carter for a moment?"

"Certainly," said Janet. "I'm done with her."

Sam got up and pushed her sleeves back down. By then Weir had come into the room, and Colonel Dave Dixon had followed her. "Colonel Dixon," Sam said, nodding. Then she noticed the patch on the man's arm. It was an SG-1 patch.

"Colonel Carter," Dixon replied.

Weir cleared her throat. "Sam, SG-1 is going to Vyus in half an hour, to find Ke'ra and hopefully find this artifact. Colonel Dixon has agreed to let you accompany his team, if you would like."

Now _that_ would just be weird. Jack was retired, Daniel was dead, she was dead, and who knew where Teal'c was these days. None of the original members of SG-1 were actually on SG-1 in this reality.

"Quinn suggested it," Dixon supplied. "He figured that since you've actually seen this thing we're going for, you ought to come along."

Sam smiled a little. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense."

"So, going to come play with us?" he asked.

She took a deep breath. "Yeah, might as well," she said. "It's not like I've got anything to do here."

Dixon looked at Weir. "I love it when the answer is 'anything but this'. Don't you?"

* * *

  
Chulak was not a place which John Sheppard had visited with any regularity. In fact, there was only one occasion on which he'd had the pleasure of going, and that was for a celebration in Teal'c's honor, once he had taken command of the free Jaffa army. But John's first impression of this part of Chulak seemed to be holding. It looked like Canada.

He, Lieutenant Elliot, and Doctor Collier were met at the gate by a dozen Jaffa, armed with P-90s that had been provided by the SGC. However, once they were recognized, the guard's leader welcomed them with a bow and directed two of his men to escort SG-17 down to the town.

It was a robust place now, bustling with activity. A bell chimed somewhere nearby, and children in the streets scrambled off. John figured they were late for school or something. "Ah, those were the days," he said to no one in particular.

"And which days would those be?" Elliot asked, moving next to him as they walked.

"Oh, you know," John replied. "The days when your only worry was being late for..." A little girl ran across the street then, cutting in front of him and nearly tripping him. John looked after her. "Whatever she's late for."

Elliot watched her run off too. "How much do you think she'll remember about the Goa'uld?"

"She might remember the last battle," Doctor Collier said. "But I bet she never got a symbiote before the Asgard fixed the genetic dependency on them."

"Kind of you to join the conversation, Collier," John replied. "I thought for a minute we'd left you at the gate."

"Very funny, John," the man said. "I'd never been to Chulak. I was taking in the scenery."

"Yeah, it's got nice... trees."

By then they were approaching a building with two Jaffa, in full armor and carrying staff weapons. John figured that it was a ceremonial thing, as they were the only Jaffa he'd seen with staff weapons in two years. With the notable exceptions of the ones who'd said hello by shooting at him two days earlier.

The building was fairly typical of what he'd seen of Chulak. It was vaguely Greco-Roman, which John had always thought very odd. They were, after all, the former army of an Egyptian god. Clearly, someone hadn't done his research.

SG-17 was escorted to the second floor, into a small room which had probably been a bedroom at one time, when the building was a house. Teal'c looked up from the large maps spread across the table as they entered. "Colonel Sheppard!" he said. "Lieutenant Elliot. It has been too long since we met under happy circumstances, old friends."

John knew what he meant by that. The last time any of the Tau'ri had seen Teal'c had been at Sam's funeral. "Good to see you too, Teal'c," he said. "Hey, this is Doctor Matt Collier," he added, waving at the third man. "I don't think you've met him."

"Indeed I have not," said Teal'c. "Welcome to Chulak, Matt Collier."

"Good to be here," Collier replied.

John shifted his weight. "You can probably guess this isn't a social call."

"I would not have expected otherwise," Teal'c replied. "What brings you to Chulak?"

He gestured them to chairs, and the four of them sat down. "Well, we know you've been busy here with the whole restoration thing," John began. "But we were kinda wondering if you had any intel you meant to send to us that got lost in the mail."

"I have sent you the most recent information we have acquired," the Jaffa replied, his smile falling. "Why would you suspect otherwise?"

"We had a little incident two days ago on a planet called Mercol," said John. "We were ambushed by some Jaffa. One of my men got hurt pretty bad."

"To what Goa'uld had these Jaffa pledged their allegiance?"

Collier shook his head. "We were never close enough to see," he replied. "And Captain Matthews was shot in the back as we were about to go through the gate."

"That is most perplexing," said Teal'c. "But it causes me to wonder."

"About what?" John asked.

"Three months ago, we visited a planet of humans which SG-1 helped to liberate from the Goa'uld Niirti," Teal'c replied. "They were mining naquadah, though their technology did not require it. When we asked their leader why they were mining, he would not give us a direct answer."

John leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "You think it's a Goa'uld?"

"I do not know what to think, Colonel Sheppard," said Teal'c. "To my knowledge, none of the Goa'uld survived the war. We may be facing a new threat entirely."

John sighed. "That's what I was afraid you'd say."

Collier cleared his throat. "Maybe we should contact the Tok'ra," he said. "It's possible that there was a Goa'uld hiding in their ranks, and now he's gone off to start conquering again."

"It's unlikely," Elliot said. "The Tok'ra have been putting themselves through the za'tarc detector every few months, to prevent that kind of thing from happening."

"But we should tell them what's going on anyway," John added. "They may have been noticing weird things too."

Teal'c stood. "I fear I have no more information which will shed light on this incident," he said, "and I am certain Doctor Weir is anxious to hear your report. I shall walk with you to the gate."

They headed back, and Teal'c spoke with great pride of the accomplishments of his people, how they were building new cities across the galaxy and developing their own industry, with some support from the Tok'ra and other more advanced allies. As great a warrior as Teal'c was, it seemed the peace fit him very, very well too.

When they reached the gate, Collier started dialing Earth, and Teal'c spoke very quietly to John. "Colonel Sheppard, how does O'Neill fare?"

John paused, wondering how much to tell him. He wasn't sure if it was appropriate for him to tell Teal'c about the Colonel Carter who had shown up two days earlier. "He's holding up," he finally said. "You know how Jack is. He survives."

Teal'c clapped his shoulder, causing John to take an involuntary step forward. "Tell him I will see him again before many months pass. If not for other reasons, my son is to be married before harvest. Rya'c greatly desires that O'Neill be present for the ceremony."

"I'll pass along the invite," John replied as the wormhole established. "It was good to see you again, Teal'c."

The Jaffa bowed. "I hope we can solve this mystery soon, Colonel Sheppard."

* * *

  
Sam didn't find out who was on SG-1 until she had geared up and arrived in the gate room, where Colonel Dixon and Jonas were waiting, along with Lieutenant Hailey and a man whom she didn't recognize. "Good morning, ma'am," Hailey said, a somber look on her face.

"Hi, Hailey." Sam looked to Dixon. "You sure you want me along for this?"

He shrugged. "Can't hurt." Then he pointed to the stranger. "This is Captain Cole. New recruit."

"Captain," Sam said, nodding. The man looked a little freaked out, but nodded anyway.

The gate activated then, beginning the dialing sequence for Vyus. "Everyone got their stuff?" Dixon asked. "Got all your toys, Hailey?"

"Yes, sir," the woman replied, a smile tugging at her lips.

The MALP went through and showed acceptable conditions, so Sam followed the team through the gate. It was an odd feeling. She had accompanied other teams off-world on rare occasion, but they had never been designated as SG-1.

They stepped out into a forested area. "Whoa," Sam said, considerably surprised.

"What?" Jonas asked.

"The Vyus gate was in a warehouse when we first came here. They must have moved it."

The sky was overcast, a dank, depressing kind of grey that drenched everything else in its blandness. Sam looked around, feeling vaguely uneasy. "Have any of you been here before?"

"Don't think so," Dixon replied. "SG-8 does most of the liaison work with Vyus, but they're already off-world, so it was up to us." He looked at her curiously. "Why?"

"Something's wrong," Sam said, frowning. "Where are the people?"

They weren't far from the city, and Sam couldn't see any signs of life in it. Usually, on planets which had been contacted before, there were signs of people immediately. But she didn't even hear any animals, only the wind flittering through the trees.

Captain Cole had walked away from the group a little distance, and he squatted down next to some bushes. "Uh oh. Sir, you need to see this," he said.

Dixon stepped over to him, the others not far behind. "We got a body, folks," Dixon said. "Masks."

Sam had to hunt through her vest pockets for a minute before finding the white surgical masks. As she was tying hers on, Jonas said, "This body's got to be at least a week old."

"Cause of death?" Dixon asked.

Cole, who had pulled on gloves as well as a mask, rolled the body over to reveal a large charred area on his back. Sam knew exactly what that was. "Staff weapon, sir," she said, quietly.

"Okay, we're heading home."

"Sir, with all due respect," Sam began.

"What, Colonel?"

"We can't just leave," she replied, pulling her mask off. "The Goa'uld are supposed to be gone. How is it that in a matter of days, two people on different planets end up shot by staff weapons?"

"I don't know, Colonel. You tell me."

Sam looked away to the city for a moment. "I don't think there's anybody here, sir," she said. "We've got to find out what happened to these people."

Dixon rolled his eyes, but pulled his mask off anyway. "Okay. But we're not staying any longer than two hours."

"Thank you, sir."

They made their way down into the city cautiously, finding more and more dead bodies as they approached. It was a sickening sight, and the stench was almost unbearable. But they pressed on, hoping for survivors around the next turn and finding none. It was worse as they came into the city.

And it was like they'd stepped into a Dali painting. The people were all dead, but around them the buildings still stood in near-perfect condition, with the exception of a few wayward scorch marks. Brightly colored flowers still grew in pots on window sills, though some were starting to wilt.

Finally they made it to one of the government buildings, where Sam remembered having seen labs. There were still lights on occasionally, but there were still no signs of survivors. They were on the third floor before anyone said anything. "Colonel," Jonas said, "I think this may be the room we're looking for."

"How can you tell?" Sam asked, before she realized that Jonas was probably addressing Dixon.

He ran his finger across a plate on the door. "This is an obscure dialect of Gaelic," he said, tapping the center word. "If I'm not mistaken, this is the name Ke'ra."

Dixon nodded. "Get us in there."

Jonas pulled out a lockpicking kit, and Sam watched, a little surprised as how quickly he managed to get the lock open. "Guess I got around to teaching you how to do that in this reality," she commented. He smiled.

The lab within was musty, and reeked of death. They found Ke'ra's body quickly, but Sam kept looking. The artifact had to be there somewhere, and it was a large lab. There were a lot of places it could be.

Twenty minutes later, they were all still looking. Dixon said, "Colonel Carter, I've about had it here."

Sam opened her mouth to protest, but then Hailey interrupted. "Ma'am, I think I've found it."

She rushed over to the young woman's side, to a wheeled crate stuffed with packing material. Hailey was pushing it away from a silver surface, covered in intricate etchings. "I think you're right," Sam said.

They got it out of the crate and onto the table as quickly as they could. "Colonel," said Captain Cole, "is it supposed to be like that?"

"Like what?" she asked, examining the top.

Jonas came up to her and frowned, running his hand along the side. "Look, Colonel."

Feeling oddly nervous, she followed his gaze to a line his fingers were tracing. Then she touched it herself and realized that it wasn't a line. It was a crack.

Suddenly she felt like she'd had the wind knocked out of her. "Ma'am, are you all right?" Hailey asked.

For a while Sam couldn't answer. When she did, her voice was breathy and strange, and almost cracked. Despite several attempts, she could only come up with two words.

"It's broken."

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

  
Elizabeth stood at the window in the briefing room, her arms folded across her chest as she watched the inert gate below. In pale reflection on the glass was John, who had given his P-90 to Elliot to be stored, but had otherwise not taken off the rest of his gear. "So Teal'c _had_ told us everything," she said.

She watched his reflection as he shifted his weight. "Not quite everything," he replied. "He said that he'd been on some planet that SG-1 liberated a few years ago, and naquadah mining had resumed for no apparent reason."

Elizabeth turned around, lowering her arms to her sides. "Naquadah mining?" she repeated. "No planet we've encountered that had active naquadah mining was at the level of technology where they would need it for themselves."

"Yeah, I know," he replied. "This is bad, right?"

She took a deep breath. "Not necessarily. For all we know, they could be selling it."

"Or someone could have forced them into slavery again. I mean, they wouldn't tell Teal'c why they were mining it."

Elizabeth closed her eyes. As much as she hated to admit it, sometimes John had a way of seeing things in a light uncomplicated by political nuance. And he was probably right. That just made it worse.

"I don't like it either, Elizabeth," he said. "This could be bad."

She turned around with a sigh, hugging her arms around herself again. For a long time she stared at the gate – the thing that governed her life as she tried to govern it – but finally she lifted her gaze to John's reflection. He was watching her carefully, his dark eyes piercing even in the dim image. "I need to call all teams home."

"With all due respect," he said, "that's a dumb idea."

Elizabeth looked over her shoulder at him, brow raised. "Need I remind you, Colonel, that you are _not_ the ranking military officer here?"

"It's a dumb idea, Doctor," he replied, unfazed by her reprimand.

"And what would you have me do?" she asked. "Keep sending teams packed with civilians off-world so they can run into some mysterious Jaffa army?"

"No, that would be dumb too," he said in a patronizing tone. "But you can't halt all activity."

"Why?"

"You weren't around when we were dealing with the Goa'uld or the replicators," he said. "Now, I wasn't around for much of it, but I did learn a few things. Whoever's behind this clearly wants to remain covert. If you pull everyone back now, that'll just tip him off that we're on to him."

"And the attack on Mercol hasn't?" she asked.

John shifted his weight and sighed. "Elizabeth, do you trust me?"

She blinked a few times and frowned. "Of course."

"Then trust me on this," he said earnestly. "Talk to Colonel Dixon when he gets back from Vyus. Notify the alpha site. Send out more military people with the research teams. But don't call everyone back. Not till we have more intel."

Elizabeth turned her back to the window and looked down at the floor. Then slowly, she nodded. John took a step forward and laid his hand on her arm. "I know this isn't exactly your area of expertise, but you've got good people around you." When she started to smile, he added, "No, I don't mean just me. You just have to trust that we're giving you good advice."

"It's a little scary," she admitted. "General Hammond managed to defeat the Goa'uld. It's a tough act to follow."

"Well, it's not a solo act," John replied. "And it wasn't for General Hammond either."

Then down below, the gate suddenly activated. Elizabeth turned to look at it as the technician announced, "Unscheduled off-world activation!"

She hurried to the stairs, aware that John was right behind her. Sergeant Harriman looked up as the pair alighted in the control room. "It's SG-1's IDC, ma'am," he said.

"Open the iris," she ordered, nodding.

A few moments later, five people came through the gate along with a large crate. Three of them had masks hanging around their necks. Elizabeth reached for the microphone. "Colonel Dixon, why were you wearing masks?"

The man looked up. "Everyone in the vicinity of the gate was dead, Doctor," he said. "We weren't sure at first if it was some kind of disease."

"Report to isolation room four, all of you."

She looked over her shoulder to John, who nodded and punched the intercom button. "Medical team to isolation room four," he said. "Repeat, medical team to isolation room four."

The gate room continued its bustling activity as SG-1 and Colonel Carter left the crate behind and exited. Elizabeth looked up at John. "Teal'c finds mysterious naquadah mining, you get ambushed, and the population of Vyus is wiped out," she said quietly.

"Yeah," he replied. "This is bad."

* * *

  
In the isolation room, Sam and SG-1 were surrounded by Janet and her medical team, despite Dixon's attempts to explain that they didn't think a disease had killed anyone on Vyus. "We're just making sure," the doctor said through her mask, in her very best _do-not-argue-with-me_ voice. Obediently, Dixon shut up.

They'd taken blood samples from everyone by the time Doctor Weir appeared in the observation booth. "Colonel Dixon," she said, "what happened on Vyus?"

"First body we found was a hundred yards from the gate," he replied. "We put on masks immediately. We then determined that he had been shot in the back with a staff weapon, possibly in an attempt to reach the gate."

"And the rest of the population?"

"We found no survivors in the city," said Dixon. "Most had been hit by staff weapons, though a few were most likely shot with zats. They'd been dead for days, ma'am."

Weir nodded slowly. "But I take it from the crate you brought back that you found the artifact."

Sam nodded. "We found it, but it was damaged."

Doctor Weir turned her head sharply to look at Sam. "Damaged?"

Sam took a deep breath. "The casing was cracked. I have no idea how this was supposed to work, so I'm going to have to run some tests before I know if it still works."

"You'll have full access to the material here on alternate realities," said Elizabeth. "I'll assign some researchers to assist you."

"We also found some of Ke'ra's notes," Jonas added. "We found out where she discovered the device, and there were references to ruins with extensive writings. We probably ought to check that out at some point."

"I'm sending a haz mat team to Vyus first, to dispose of the bodies properly and ensure that everything's clear," she said. "After that, you can accompany one of the archaeological teams to the site if you like."

Jonas nodded to her, and Elizabeth placed her hands on her hips. "Colonel Dixon, as soon as Doctor Fraiser releases you, we need to talk."

She strode off, and Sam turned to Dixon. "Wonder what that was about."

"Shep was with her in the control room when we got back," the man said. "Double or nothing he has bad news."

* * *

  
Summer in Colorado Springs was swiftly turning to autumn, and a few days after SGs-1 and 17 had returned from their respective missions, Sarah Gardner found it necessary to wear a jacket of one kind or another. By the time she left the mountain and drove to Jack's house, she was almost wishing for a coat.

She didn't offer Sam a chance to come along this time, and she suspected that Sam would have turned down the offer anyway. She was working very hard on getting home, despite the fact that the chances of it were becoming increasingly bleak. Still, Sarah didn't want to risk distracting her.

She let herself into the house, which was quiet. "Jack?" she called.

Getting no answer, she wandered around the house a little and found Jack as he was coming in from the back door. "There you are," she said. "I was starting to get a little worried."

He looked around warily. "I came alone," Sarah added.

Jack nodded, then turned and ambled his way into the kitchen. "You want anything?"

"Are you offering to cook for me this time?"

"Sure, why not," he replied. "I'm really good with toast. I can put the bread in and make sure it doesn't get burned, but still manages to be nice and crispy and brown."

Sarah laughed. "I wouldn't want you to trouble yourself."

"Your loss," he said, pulling a beer from the refrigerator. "So what gives? It's a little late for dinner."

"I'm here to talk," she replied. "Doctor Weir asked me to tell you a few things."

He reentered the dining room, where dying sunlight washed the room in a bright kind of haze. Jack gestured to a chair. "So, what gives?"

"SG-17 went to Chulak a few days ago," she said. "John Sheppard asked me to relay a message from Teal'c."

He took a drink. "Oh?"

"Rya'c is getting married in a few months," Sarah replied, smiling. "He wants you to come to the ceremony."

"Really," Jack said. "Kid's going to make me feel old."

Sarah laughed a little. "Children always do."

"So, what else?"

"SG-1 went to Vyus," she replied. "The entire population had been wiped out."

"How?"

Sarah shrugged. "As far as they could tell, it was a widespread attack."

"And the artifact?"

"They found it, but it had been damaged. Colonel Carter doesn't think she can get it to work again."

He set his beer aside and stared at the table. "So this is about her."

"No, it's not," Sarah replied, reaching over to grasp his hand in hers. "This is about you. It's your choice."

They didn't speak for a while, until Sarah felt uncomfortable with the silence and spoke. "I'm to go to Vyus Saturday morning with one of the archaeological teams," she said. "Jonas said there were references to extensive writings in the ruins where Ke'ra found the device. We're hoping they might shed some light on how to send Sam back."

He frowned. "Why would anyone attack Vyus in this reality and not in hers?"

"I don't know," she said. "There are a lot of things going on right now that don't make sense."

"Well, be careful on Vyus," he replied, looking up at her. "You never know what's been left behind in a situation like that."  


"We'll be careful, Jack. Nothing to worry about there." She paused. "Why don't I come by tomorrow night? You can continue your crusade to convince me that _The Simpsons_ is worth watching."

"Sounds like a plan," he said. "You can... bring her. If you want. If she wants."

Sarah waited to speak until Jack made eye contact. "Are you sure?"

He ran his free hand through the hair at the back of his head. "I'll probably regret it later, but... If Carter says she doesn't think she can get something to work... Yeah."

Sarah wanted to ask him again, but instead she held his hand a little tighter. And in the silence they remained, half-finished conversations in the air until darkness fell.

* * *

  
That night, Sarah dreamt.

She was in a room of stone, lying on a cold, hard platform, and people with strange voices surrounded her. She could sense something in them... _Tok'ra_.

The thought revolted her, though her mind tried to tell her that the Tok'ra were their allies. But some other part of her insisted that they were lower than even the _shol'vah_. Not traitors of their god, but traitors of their blood.

"Can you help her?"

The voice... Jack's, though it sounded from afar, a soft and distant echo in the cavern. Sarah opened her eyes and saw a face she remembered through the mist and fog that Osiris had left in her mind. What was his name... Malek?

_Villainous filth who dare defy me–_

The Tok'ra – _how revolting that they subdue me and examine me and_ – looked down at Sarah, but when he spoke, it was not to her. "We can do nothing," he said, "unless she is willing to remember."

"No!" she screamed. "You can't leave this thing in me!"

What was she talking about? They'd removed Osiris from her ages ago.

_You cannot resist me, weak and vile Tau'ri–_

"If she does not wish to remember on her own, we cannot take the symbiote from her," the Tok'ra repeated.

He began to pull a sheer black cloth over her face, but she suddenly leapt up with a strength she didn't know she possessed. She knocked the Tok'ra away and grabbed a zat'ni'katel from another. None opposed her as she ran.

Once out of the cavern, she turned around, but the Tok'ra were gone. A woman's form lay upon the platform, the cloth covering her face. Sarah felt a strange curiosity, for the woman was clearly not her. But Osiris urged her on. She had to find the Stargate.

The planet was a warm one, almost tropical, and lush vegetation climbed like ivy over the ruins of a once-great civilization. And in the distance she saw four people approach. Two of them had the mark of the demon, like the one she carried within her. SG-1.

They saw her and ran toward her. Sarah wanted to collapse, but within her Osiris was pushing her, dragging her body through horrors she had already lived. Somehow she had her ribbon device with her – she raised it as she cried, "You will pay for your insolence!"

"Sarah, Sarah, it's me," said Daniel, running toward her.

"Doctor Jackson," she said. "How unfortunate that you cannot seem to avoid wanting to save everyone."

"Sarah, please, you have to fight–"

"The host is incapable of resisting me."

_NO! Please, let me go, let me die..._

"Sarah," he said softly, "Sarah, it's me."

"Your compassion will be your undoing." She lifted her hand again, and filled with hatred of herself for opening that infernal jar, she activated the ribbon device.

"Sarah!" he cried, falling to his knees. "Sarah, it's me!"

_Daniel, Daniel, please, do anything, make them kill me, make the pain go away, make them stop me, don't let me hurt you anymore–_

She was crying. Osiris couldn't stop it, and she was fighting the ribbon device as much as she possibly could. Then suddenly something pummeled into her with enough force to knock her down.

Before she or Osiris could figure out what was going on, there was a dark-haired man straddling her, wrestling with her to pull the ribbon device away from her. "Hi. Major John Sheppard. United States Air Force," he said, with some effort. "You're my first Goa'uld. Nice to meet you."

Osiris made spit her in his face. "Filthy Tau'ri! _Hasshack! Gonach!_ "

"Now," Sheppard said, pulling the gold caps from her fingers, "you're far too pretty to use that kind of language."

Then something pierced her skin, and all faded to blackness.

But she did not wake. She continued to dream.

She watched herself kill people, and part of her mind enjoyed the snapping of bones, the spilling of blood. The rest of her mind wanted to flee, wanted to die, wanted to melt away into nothingness. Anything was better than this half-life, this waking nightmare. The darkness would envelope her, even in a dream.

And then she was in a small lab in Chicago, carefully breaking the seal on a mysterious canopic jar. Within was a strange, snakelike creature, still alive. Sarah pulled it out and watched in mystified horror as it squirmed in her hand. Then, before she had time to be surprised, it wrapped around her wrist and slithered up her arm. When it bit into the back of her neck, she bolted upright in bed and screamed.

Some time later, she lay down again, her breathing still erratic. Nightmares had come and gone, but this time she had seen things she had never remembered before. What she saw frightened her – there were so many things she couldn't bear to relive. She wanted Daniel to hug her and tell her it would be all right, that she didn't have to relive any of it. But for fear of dreams, she could not sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

  
By the third time Sarah went to Vyus, she was beginning to wonder if it was all a waste of time.

They located the ruins where Ke'ra found the device, but they were so extensive that a long-term excavation team had to be set up. Sarah, not being officially assigned to any team, visited the planet to assist with translations when she had nothing else to do at the SGC. Her stays were no more than a few days. She hated being off-world for much longer than that. Too many memories.

Three weeks after SG-1's brief visit to Vyus, the archaeologists were still finding new ruins to explore, so Sarah's visits were becoming longer and longer. But she insisted on being allowed to go back to Earth on Fridays, to spend the evening with Jack.

Though it had been her tradition in the months since Sam's death to spend as much time with Jack as she could, this other Sam's arrival had made it more regular. On Fridays they would have dinner together and watch a movie or just talk for a few hours. Both Jack and Sam had been reluctant about it, but in the end they seemed to be the ones who benefited from the contact most. It wasn't like the old Sam and Jack – not by a long shot – but things were gradually warming to a degree of friendship which made Sarah feel better.

Perhaps that was why she'd brought Sam over in the first place. That briefing the day Sam had arrived had hurt to watch. Sarah had never been around Jack and Sam when they weren't together, and the coldness between them was so alien to Sarah that she felt compelled to fix it. She'd never considered herself the fixing type – not like Sam, who tinkered with anything she could get her hands on – but she did tend to want things in order. Having Jack and Sam at odds with each other, in any way, was not the order to which she was accustomed.

Sarah wiped sweat from her forehead and leaned back on her elbows. She'd been staring at this wall for at least an hour now, and the heat of Vyus' summer sun was starting to get to her. She'd just tried to translate a word as "surrender" instead of "give up". Daniel would have slapped her wrist for that kind of mistake.

The gravel crunched behind her under someone's footsteps. Sarah looked over her shoulder to see who was approaching her. "Jonas," she said.

"Thought you might like something to drink," he replied, squatting down next to her and handing her a canteen. "How's it going?"

She took a long drink from it before answering. "The translation is coming well enough, but I've not found anything in this panel that has anything to do with that device. This is all about plagues, and something about a city."

"Well, we've guessed that the Ancients died out in a plague that pretty much killed off all life in the galaxy," Jonas commented, fingering the word she'd just tried to mistranslate. "I guess this text shouldn't be surprising. This place is like a history of the Ancients."

"Yes, but a city?" she asked. "And unless I'm mistaken, it's a _lost_ city. That doesn't make any sense."

"Huh." He stared at the symbols intently. "'Strength to the weak,'" he read.

"Are you sure?" Sarah asked. "I translated it as 'power for the defenseless.' The context of it is about some kind of device. I assume it was a weapon. And it seems to have worked, so I doubt it's Colonel Carter's device."

"You know, this language could lose a few homonyms and I'd be happy."

Sarah laughed. "I know what you mean. Ancient Egyptian is child's play in comparison."

"No kidding." He gave her a boyish grin and stood up. "Want to see something else? They've discovered a new set of ruins a couple klicks away. Apparently it's really cool."

"Absolutely," she said, gathering notebook and pen in one hand holding her hand up to him. He took it and helped her stand. "I need a break."

* * *

  
What had once been Sam's lab at the SGC was now Jennifer Hailey's. Hailey had awkwardly offered to let Sam use the room whenever she needed to, but Sam didn't feel comfortable in there anymore. The lieutenant had reorganized things, which was perfectly reasonable, but now it just felt odd to Sam. So, whenever the two of them weren't working together on Ke'ra's device, Sam spent her time in one of the other labs, particularly the lab which had been Daniel's.

It was now shared by Jonas and Sarah, and Sam smiled a little to see the evidence of two opposing personalities in the room. Jonas was a pack-rat – he never got rid of anything if he didn't have to. Sarah, on the other hand, wanted things to be neat and orderly, and the result was that Sarah was constantly rearranging the clutter, and Jonas could never find anything. The two of them seemed fine with the arrangement, however, as they did manage to work together well.

Of course, the benefit of the lab being under Sarah's management was that Sam could always come into the room and find a clear space in which to work. And after three weeks of studying that device and making no headway, Sam had decided that it was time for a break. She'd taken up Doctor Weir's offer to let her peruse mission reports at last, and she'd had them sent to this lab, where she could work in peace while Sarah and Jonas were off-world.

She was starting with SG-1's mission reports, going with the gut feeling both she and Jack had had about the divergence between realities having something to do with their unit. Sam smiled a little at the recollection of that conversation. Jack had a way of looking at things that seemed to defy conventional logic, but he was right about things so often.

She'd started reading the reports in the middle of the morning, worked through lunch without realizing it, and didn't realize how late it had gotten until she had read through nearly five years of mission reports. They were strange to read, since Sam remembered writing many of them. But thus far there had been nothing extraordinary in them, though she knew that the divergence had to be coming soon.

She rubbed at her eyes, as her vision had grown a little hazy from so much reading. It was Friday, so she couldn't keep this up for much longer. Sarah was supposed to come back from Vyus in a couple hours, and they'd be going over to Jack's for dinner. It had become a strange regularity in their lives, and the tangible distance between Sam and Jack had been shrinking with each dinner. During her last visit there, Sarah had kicked the two of them out of the kitchen for a few minutes and they'd actually managed to hold a conversation with little trace of awkwardness.

Of course, later in the evening, she had entered the kitchen and found him standing at the sink, twisting his gold wedding band around his finger, his eyes tightly shut. In a moment of impulse, she'd asked him if he wanted her to leave. He'd said no, and she'd been glad. Sam didn't understand why Jack was putting himself through this, but at times she saw the old Jack in his rich, dark eyes, and she wondered if that was why.

There was a light rap at the door, and Sam looked up to see Hailey and Elliot standing just outside the lab. "Come in," she said, straightening things up a little.

"How are you, ma'am?" Elliot asked.

"Can't complain too much," she replied. "What are you two up to?"

"Doctor Weir told us you were going through reports," said Hailey. "We were just curious about how it was going."

"Slowly." Sam closed the folder on the incident when the gate malfunctioned and trapped Teal'c in it. "There's a lot of information here."

"You should have just talked to Jonas," Hailey replied. "He's memorized all the reports."

"And you haven't?"

Hailey smiled. "No, ma'am."

"Well, he's not scheduled to return from Vyus for a few days, so that's not going to help me," said Sam.

She picked up the next file and started skimming through the pages on her father and Daniel infiltrating the summit of the System Lords. Then her hand froze, hovering over the page. "Ma'am?" said Elliot. "Is something wrong?"

Sam looked up slowly. "I haven't found any divergences yet," she said, slowly. "But this is the mission you died on in my reality."

Frowning, he stepped up to the table and read the top of the page upside-down. "Well, I was on that mission," he said. "Ended up with a Tok'ra symbiote, but I, uh, didn't die."

"So what happened?"

"The base at Revanna was attacked," he replied, and Sam started skimming the file. "I was hurt pretty badly, and Lantash took me as a host to try to save me. He... he died to save me. Like Jolinar."

"But how did you escape the Jaffa?" Sam asked, frowning.

"Your father and Doctor Jackson showed up just as we got to the surface," he replied, confusion coloring his voice. "We got out of there as fast as we could."

"But Daniel didn't –"

She stopped suddenly and looked up at him with eyes wide. "Daniel didn't what?" he asked.

Sam didn't answer. Instead, she started flying through the report, hunting for any reference to the Tok'ra poison. "That's how you got rid of the System Lords, isn't it?" she finally asked. "Daniel killed them at the summit, before Sarah arrived."

"She was late getting there," Hailey said. "Daniel wanted to wait around to find out more from the System Lords, but he and Selmak were afraid that his cover was going to get blown at any time."

"I've always kind of wondered about what would have happened if he'd waited around a bit," Elliot added.

"I could tell you exactly," Sam replied. She paused, her eyes focused on nothing in particular as pieces began to fall together in their logical places. "But this means you don't know –"

"Unscheduled off-world activation!"

Klaxons sounded around the base, and the three of the rushed from the room. But Sam's reason for haste was quite different from Hailey's and Elliot's. She had to find Doctor Weir, and find her quickly.

* * *

  
There was a kind of peace to Vyus, despite the fact that a month earlier hundreds of people had been killed there. They were far enough away from the populated areas of the planet now that it didn't seem quite so heartless to Sarah to be talking and laughing with Jonas as they made their way down to the new site.

They were accompanied by guards, of course. Since John Sheppard had returned with Teal'c's intelligence, no research team had left Earth without a fairly heavy contingent of armed escorts. Sarah didn't particularly mind, though some of the researchers who'd been around longer than she had were incensed by the idea of going _back_ to that "archaic military system". Elizabeth had finally told several of them that they were going to have to deal with the new rules or not go off-world again. Some had accepted the new rules; some hadn't. Weir had dealt with them accordingly.

Sarah readjusted her wide-brimmed hat, wishing she hadn't left her sunscreen back at the old site. There was nothing but sand as far as the eye could see, so she stopped as Jonas was detailing a translation he was working on, untied her trainers and bared her feet to the hot sand. "Sarah," Jonas began, "what are you doing?"

"Going barefooted," she replied, starting off again as she stuffed her socks into her bag. "I haven't been to a beach in ages. This is probably the closest I'll get for a while."

He gave her an odd look, but didn't protest again. "So what's this site we're looking at?" she asked.

"They just found it the day before you came back this time," Jonas said.

Sarah looked at him sharply. "And you didn't tell me before now?"

"Hey," he said, holding up one hand, "They were still digging when you got back, and I didn't want to distract you from the translations you were doing. I know how you get when you're translating. You don't like another language invading your head."

"Another language?" she repeated. "This isn't Ancient?"

Jonas shook his head. "Nope. It's Goa'uld."

"Interesting." The group took a turn around a sand dune, and not far beyond them were the ruins, rising dark and majestic against the bright sky. Around the site were a dozen archaeologists still working at uncovering the ruins and artifacts. "This is incredible, Jonas." Then Sarah took her hat off and smacked his arm with it. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

He nudged her with his elbow as she put her hat on again. "I told you, you were busy," he said. "Besides, they only discovered writings at the site two days ago, and I knew you wanted to focus on the Ancient for a while."

They were near enough by then that Sarah could make out some details. "This is an old site, too," she mused. "I'd guess it's older than the Pangaran site."

Jonas grinned. "That's what I was thinking too."

"So what did they find first?" Sarah asked, pausing to stuff her shoes in her bag too.

"The obelisk," he replied, pointing at the structure rising from the center of the ring. "It seems to be largely ceremonial, though, because we haven't found anything in it that would suggest usefulness."

"This black stone doesn't seem like anything we've found in this area," she commented. "It must have been brought–"

She stopped suddenly as a memory arose her in mind, as though seeing this place had wiped sand from it. There was a figure hooded and cloaked–

"Sarah?"

"A memory," she whispered, opening her eyes to the harsh sun. Then she took a deep breath and smiled. "I love the smell of a new excavation site. Don't you?" He gave her a friendly, but skeptical smile, and Sarah shook her head. "It's the smell of soil turned for the first time in a thousand years. There's something thrilling to the thought."

"So poetic." She could tell from his voice that he was poking fun.

"This coming from the man who has Byron's complete works memorized?" Sarah replied, laughing along their way to the obelisk and the surrounding pillars. "I'd sooner take such abuse from Jack, even with his volumes of Pushkin."

"Hey, you were the one who dared me to translate _Hamlet_ into Ancient."

"That was to keep you busy while I threw some of your stuff away," she said. "Of course, I had no idea you'd finish it in two days. You and that frightfully efficient brain. If only we could harness that into organizational skills."

Laughing, he thwapped her arm with a notebook. "I'm going to talk to the dig leader. Look around a bit. I'll be back."

Sarah nodded and wandered away from the obelisk, to a broad panel still bearing traces of gold leaf after thousands of years of burial. This one was covered with Goa'uld, the usual lists of triumphs over mortal enemies, the consolidation of power. Of course, there was something odd about the panel. Osiris had left her with exceptional fluency in the language, but even she was having some difficulty reading this. It was old, so very old...

_The rivers of Earth will run red with blood._

She ran her fingers across some words – utter shame and defeat of the enemy. Banishment. Death.

_The old order has fallen. The System Lords are in disarray. Opportunities exist, but only for those who are bold enough to seize them._

Filled with an unreasonable sense of foreboding, Sarah continued reading. There were tales of wars, of rivals subdued, of armies destroyed. Then finally came the name of the conqueror.

_One whom you once knew well._

_Anubis._

Then as a barrage of memories flooded her, Sarah's world turned to blackness. She did not feel herself hit the ground, nor hear Jonas call her name.

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

  
When Sam arrived in the control room, Elizabeth Weir was standing behind Sergeant Harriman, her arms folded across her chest and a look of serious concern on her face. "Doctor?" she asked. "What's going on?"

"Someone dialed in," the dark-haired woman replied. "Nothing has come through, not even a radio transmission."

Sam's first horrified thought was of an event two years earlier, when Anubis' attack on Earth had begun in this manner. But then the technician said, "Doctor Weir, we've got a signal coming through." He paused while the computer analyzed it. "It's SG-1's IDC. Medical emergency."

"Open the iris," Weir replied, "and call a medical team to the gate room."

Sam looked at Weir in confusion. "I thought Jonas was the only member of SG-1 who was off-world."

"He is," she replied. "At the dig on Vyus."

As the rapidly-assembled medical team hurried into the gate room, the traveller finally arrived. With a soft slurp followed by the dissipation of the wormhole, Jonas Quinn stepped into the gate room, the limp body of Sarah Gardner in his arms. "Sarah," Elizabeth breathed, and then she rushed from the control room.

Sam was not far behind. By the time the two women had entered the gate room, Jonas was kneeling, and two medics were pulling Sarah onto a stretcher. Janet had run up the ramp and knelt beside the Kelownan man. "Jonas, what happened?" she asked, feeling Sarah's pulse.

"I'm not really sure," he said. "We were at the new dig site. I left her alone for a minute to talk with someone, and when I turned around she'd collapsed."

"How long has she been unconscious?"

"Uh... about an hour."

"An _hour_? Jonas, what were you thinking?"

"Well, we thought she might wake up if we got her to shade," he began, "and then when she didn't come to we got her to the gate. But we were a few kilometers away and it took a while to get there."

"Get her to the infirmary," Janet ordered.

The medics moved quickly, and as soon as they were out of the way, Elizabeth and Sam both came up the ramp. "Doctor Fraiser, what's going on?" Elizabeth asked.

"To be honest, Doctor Weir, I'm not sure," Janet replied, putting her hands in her pockets. "Her pulse was normal, there's no evident trauma to the head or anywhere else, but she's been unconscious for an hour, according to Jonas. We'll do an MRI to see if there's internal bleeding."

Elizabeth nodded, and then turned to Sam as Janet left. "Did you need to tell me anything?" she asked. "You don't usually come into the control room every time the gate activates."

"Yeah," Sam replied, suddenly remembering what she'd been doing before the gate activated. "Have either of you ever heard of Anubis?"

Jonas frowned. "God of the underworld in Egyptian mythology, represented in art by a jackal," he answered immediately. "Why?"

"I made a bad assumption," she replied. "I figured that if you had Sarah around, then you knew who Osiris was working for."

"Wait," said Doctor Weir, "Osiris was working for someone else? This Anubis?"

Sam nodded. "In my reality, Daniel waited around to find out who else was coming to the Goa'uld summit, and that's how he found out about Anubis. Osiris came to petition the System Lords to allow him back from his banishment."

"Why was he banished?" Elizabeth asked.

"He committed crimes so heinous that even the Goa'uld were disgusted. So they kicked him out." Sam shook her head. "But this doesn't make sense. Why hasn't he attacked Earth already?"

Weir shook her head. "Sam, how can you assume that this Anubis is still out there?"

"Most of it makes sense," she replied. "Teal'c finds mysterious naquadah mining. Sheppard's team is ambushed by Jaffa who won't show themselves. The population of Vyus is wiped out. He doesn't want us or the Jaffa or the Tok'ra to know he's out there, and the destruction of an entire population is something most Goa'uld wouldn't consider doing. I just can't figure out why he hasn't made his move before now."

"Maybe... Maybe there was something out there to distract him," Jonas suggested.

An inkling of an idea began to form in Sam's mind. "I need to talk to Colonel Sheppard," she said.

"He's scheduled to leave for the alpha site in less than half an hour," said Elizabeth. "He's volunteered to test-fly the X-304." She turned to look up at the control room. "Sergeant," she said to the technician, "page Colonel Sheppard to my office."

"Yes, ma'am."

Elizabeth, Sam, and Jonas started walking down the ramp. "How bad are we talking, Sam?" Weir asked.

"Anubis was thought to be dead for several centuries," Sam replied. "The truth was that he learned how to ascend."

"Whoa, we're dealing with an ascended being here?" Jonas asked.

"Sort of," she said as the group was leaving the gate room and entering the control room, continuing up the stairs. "The way Daniel explained it was that the other ascended beings tried but couldn't completely expel him. So he's stuck. He can't take human form, but he still has a considerable amount of power. Plus he has mastery of Ancient technology."

"That would be a problem," said Doctor Weir. They began to ascend the stairs. "Jonas, I need everything you've got on this Anubis person."

"I was just about to suggest that," he said. "I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

"All right." The man departed, and the two women walked through the briefing room. "I'm going to call Jack," Elizabeth added. "He'll want to know about Sarah."

Sam nodded. "I'll wait for Colonel Sheppard out here."

* * *

  
"Colonel Sheppard, report to Doctor Weir's office! Repeat, Colonel Sheppard, report to Doctor Weir's office."

John Sheppard was alone in the locker room, tying his shoes, when the page came over the base intercom. He glanced at his watch and ran his right hand through his hair. He had about twenty minutes before he was scheduled to head off-world. Elizabeth probably wanted to give him the usual "don't do anything stupid" speech. He'd heard that one from her in just about every variety it could possibly have, and John figured he might actually have deserved most of them.

He headed down several levels to the briefing room, where he found Sam leaning against the long table. "Hello, Colonel," he said, with a glance at the office. Elizabeth was on the phone.

"Colonel Sheppard," said Sam. "You were on the mission where Sarah was rescued, right?"

"Yeah, P88-942," he replied. "My first mission." Sam blanched, and John frowned. "Why, what's wrong?"

"Did the planet look like there had been an advanced civilization at one time?"

"Yeah," he said. "It was really weird. It was like kudzu had taken over the entire planet. There were energy readings from something, but we figured it was from Sarah's communicator."

"Oh no," the woman breathed. "Did anyone from the SGC ever go back?"

"Not that I know of. Colonel, what's going on?"

"We went to that planet and found an android," she said. "Her name was Reese. It turned out that she created the Replicators as a toy, and then lost control of them. They destroyed that civilization, and then left the planet."

"But no one's had problems with the Replicators in a couple years."

"That's..." Sam bit the inside of her cheek. "I think that's because they've been keeping someone else busy."

He didn't ask for her to explain that, figuring that someone would fill him in when he needed to know. "Hey, what was that activation just now?"

"Oh, the Vyus excavation," she replied. "Sarah Gardner collapsed for no apparent reason. Jonas brought her back."

"Sarah collapsed?" John repeated. "Is she okay?"

"She's still unconscious," said Sam. "Janet's running some tests."

He checked his watch. Ten minutes. "I don't have enough time to see her before I leave," he said. "Hey, when she wakes up, tell her I said not to knock herself out again, okay?"

Sam smiled a little. "I'll let her know."

"Thanks," he called to Sam's retreating form. He turned to the office, where Elizabeth was just hanging up the phone. He walked in, crossed his arms over his chest, and said, "You wanted to see me?"

Elizabeth looked up suddenly, startled. "Ah, no," she replied.

John frowned. "Okay, you didn't page me, or you didn't want to see me?"

"John, please," she said, a little overly patient and embarrassed. "Colonel Carter needed to talk with you."

"Oh." He stood there a moment, not quite knowing what to do. Finally he lowered his arms and said, "Well, I guess I'll head out. They'll be dialing up the gate for me in a minute."

"All right," said Elizabeth. She looked up at him from the papers on her desk. "Be careful out there, John."

"It's just the alpha site, Elizabeth," he replied, somewhat confused. She didn't usually tell him to be careful.

"There's something strange going on," she said. "Don't take anything for granted, not even the safety of the alpha site."

John nodded and left the office. By the time he'd reached the control room, the gate was already being dialed, and the pilot who was flying second seat for this test was waiting for him in the gate room. They headed through a couple minutes later, and at the event horizon, he looked over his shoulder. Elizabeth was watching him from the briefing room, and, with her words still fresh in his mind, he waved to her. She nodded in return.

* * *

  
With Janet assuring her of notification as soon as Sarah was awake, Sam retreated to her – Jennifer Hailey's lab to work. The young woman wasn't there, so Sam was left alone to tinker with Ke'ra's device in peace and quiet. She wanted the distraction now. The idea of Anubis still being around and unopposed by the System Lords was frightening.

It wasn't long, however, before the silence was disturbed by a knock at the door. Sam took a moment longer to copy down energy readings before looking up. "Jack," she said, once she saw the familiar silhouette.

"I got a phone call from Weir," he said. "Something about Sarah."

"She's unconscious," Sam said, looking at her watch. "She's been that way for a couple hours."

Jack approached the lab table, though, to Sam's surprise, he didn't pick up the magnifying glass and play with it, as the Jack back in her own reality would have done. "Does Doc Fraiser have any ideas?"

"Not really. I just came up here to–"

"Get your mind off it." He paused a moment and looked up. "I know."

Sam took a deep breath. "Yeah."

"There's something else," he said, a statement more than a question.

"I think I may know what's been going on," she replied. "Why the people on Vyus were all killed. Why Sheppard's team was attacked. But I need to talk to Sarah."

He reached across the table and closed her notebook. "Come on," he said. "Let's see if she's awake yet."

They walked down to the infirmary in silence. Jack got quite a few respectful nods as they went. On the elevator they were accompanied by a young lieutenant who seemed rather skittish being in a confined space with both the legendary Jack O'Neill and a woman who was supposed to be dead. He changed his mind about his destination two levels into the ride, and when he dashed off, Jack and Sam shared a small smile of amusement.

On Level 21 they alighted and traveled down the pipe-like corridors to the infirmary. There was someone coming out as they were going in, so Jack stepped behind Sam slightly and placed his hand on her lower back, ushering her in as he followed. Janet was beside Sarah, feeling the woman's forehead. "Doc," Jack said, "how is she?"

Janet looked up. "Oh, hello, Jack," she replied. "I still can't find a thing wrong with her. I'm going to look over the MRI results again if she doesn't wake up soon."

"Doctor Fraiser," said a voice behind them. Sam looked over her shoulder to see Jonas in the doorway.

"She's not awake yet," Janet replied, anticipating his question. "But Jonas, I have a question for you. Where are Sarah's shoes?"

"Oh, she took them off," Jonas supplied. "Something about wanting to go to a beach. I didn't ask too many questions."

Then suddenly they heard a soft moan, and everyone's attention was drawn to Sarah. She turned her head, and when she opened her eyes she looked around in a panic. Janet was quick to put a hand on her shoulder to pin her down. "Easy," said the doctor. "You've been out for a while."

Sarah's eyes fell on Sam, and for a long time she appeared to be searching for words. "Sarah," Janet said, "how do you feel?"

Sarah didn't answer Janet. Instead, she looked at Sam and said at a whisper, "Anubis."

"I know," said Sam. "Osiris was working for him."

Sarah nodded. "I don't know how he managed to block all of that," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. "I remember so much, so many horrible things that I did, and I couldn't remember something so important..."

"Sarah," Janet said calmly, "you've remembered now, and that's the important part."

Jack looked down at Sam. "This is what you figured out."

"Yeah," Sam replied, planting her hands on her hips. "They rescued you on a planet where, in my reality, we found the source of the Replicators. When Osiris disappeared, Anubis must have traced your movements and found what we found."

Jack shuddered. "I hate those things."

"They get worse," Sam said. "Back in my reality we have human-form Replicators."

He jumped a little, making a sound of disgust. "That's just wrong."

They heard the clicking of high heels on the concrete floor, and Sam turned to see Doctor Weir walking toward them. "Doctor Fraiser," she said, "how's our patient?"

"She's awake," Janet replied.

"Good news," the woman said, before looking around at the faces of those surrounding the infirmary bed. "Or not. Colonel Carter?"

"It _was_ Anubis," said Sam. "He's still out there."

Weir took a deep breath. "I think we can assume that Anubis is trying to remain covert, so we may have time to prepare ourselves for an assault on Earth. I assume that's where he's going with this."

"Yeah, probably," Sam replied.

"All right, everyone," Janet said, "Sarah needs rest, so I'm going to have to ask you all to leave."

They filed away without complaint, and the four stood in the corridor for a moment longer. "Sam, I appreciate this," Elizabeth said, "but I don't want it to distract you."

"From what?"

"From getting home. That should be your first priority," she said. "Whatever you do to help us with this new problem won't get you home."

Without thinking, Sam glanced at Jack, whose eyes were fixed on his toes. Elizabeth didn't wait for an answer. "I need to call the President," she continued, "and then I need to head to the alpha site to consult with Colonel Reynolds and his staff. Jack, I'm sorry, but I'm sure you can show yourself out when you're ready to leave."

Jack nodded, and Elizabeth walked away. He turned to Sam, and after an awkward pause said, "I guess dinner's off tonight."

"I guess so."

"Get some rest, Sam," he said, touching her arm. "You look exhausted. I'll stop by tomorrow."

Somewhere in Sam's mind, as they said their goodbyes, she wondered if he would be stopping by to see her, or for other reasons.

That night Sam went to bed early, but found herself sleeping restlessly. She dreamed, which was not a common occurrence for her. It was all so vivid. In the dream, she awoke in Jack's bed and rose, leaving him asleep. Wearing an old hockey jersey she'd found in his closet, she wandered into the living room, where a bright glow filled the room.

After a while, Sam's eyes adjusted to it, or perhaps it faded. In the center of the brightness stood a man with brown hair, dressed in an off-white sweater. His arms were folded across his chest. Then he turned and gestured to the sofa as he sat in the recliner.

"Why don't you sit down, Sam?" Daniel asked.

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

  
Elizabeth spent a lot of time with Jonas after leaving the infirmary, discussing what they knew about Anubis from Egyptian myth and who to contact for more information. It was possible that the Tok'ra knew something, but in all likelihood, Sam was their best source. After a while, however, Elizabeth told Jonas to get some sleep. She wanted him to accompany her to the alpha site on Sunday, which meant spending most of Saturday preparing for the meeting with the off-world officers.

She had just packed up and was turning the lights off in her office when the gate activated. Sighing softly, she headed down the stairs into the control room, where a young sergeant was sitting at the computer. "Sergeant?" she prompted.

"It's SG-17, ma'am," he said, after a moment's hesitation.

"That's odd," she replied. "Sheppard isn't due back until tomorrow. Open the iris."

She headed into the gate room as the iris opened, and she was just coming through the door when John and his copilot stepped through the wormhole. They were drenched, and Elizabeth smiled a little. "I thought the alpha site gate was inside," she said.

The copilot nodded to Elizabeth and walked off, but John seemed quite content to stay a while. "It is inside," he replied. "Colonel Reynolds started a new tradition there. Right before you leave, they dump a bucket of something on you as a send-off."

"Water, you mean?"

"No, sometimes it's other stuff." They began walking slowly up toward the briefing room. "Like that green slime from _You Can't Do That on Television_."

"Right," she said. "Why are you back so soon? What happened to the flight test?"

"Cancelled," said John, clearly recognizing that it was back to business. "There's a monsoon at the alpha site. I got to hit the hangar to take a look at the 304, but no flying today."

"Sorry to hear that. I know you were looking forward to it."

"No big deal. It's been rescheduled," he said. "This means I get to get some sleep and maybe even tidy up the house before you come over to help me get the rest of my furniture set up tomorrow."

"There's an idea."

"So you're coming? You still haven't RSVPed my invitation."

"The one you scribbled on a napkin so I'd feel formally invited?" she answered, laughing. It was in her briefcase.

"Yeah. You coming or what?"

She sighed, picking up her briefcase from the briefing room table, where she'd left it when the gate activated. "I don't know, John," she replied. "I have a lot of work to do tomorrow, before I go to the alpha site."

"You realize you did talk me into buying half the stuff that's arriving tomorrow."

"So I know what all of it looks like already. Besides, if you really want someone to help you move furniture, you should possibly look to someone with upper body strength."

He waved dismissively. "Yeah, but if you come over, we can get everything put together while we watch a movie. You need a relaxing evening before you go off-world. You don't go through the gate all that often."

Elizabeth opened her mouth, but John didn't let her reply. "If you come, you get to pick the movie."

"And if I don't?"

He shrugged with a cocky smile.

She smiled and looked down. "We'll see."

John ran both hands through his wet hair and then shook his head slightly, sending water droplets all over the place. "See you tomorrow at six."

He didn't give her time for rebuttal, leaving before she could find a coherent argument. Of course, since she'd taken this position at the SGC, John had been talking her into things, including letting her hair go back to its natural brown. At least he was considerate enough to do it in private.

Elizabeth almost headed back to her office before she remembered that she'd been on her way home. She took an immense amount of paperwork home with her, and in the back of her mind she wondered the whole evening if she'd be able to finish it before six the following night.

* * *

  
"Sam?" the dream Daniel asked. "Are you going to sit down?"

Mutely Sam took a seat, feeling a little self-conscious about being dressed in only Jack's hockey jersey. Then she reminded herself that none of this was real, and that Daniel, being an ascended being, probably cared about a lot of things more than he cared about her legs.

"So," he said, "how's it going?"

"Oh, you know," she replied. "I'm stuck in an alternate reality and dreaming about a dead friend of mine. It's going great."

"You've been around Jack too much."

"Probably."

Sam looked around the room. "Why are we here?"

"Well, your mind chose the location," Daniel replied. "You'd have to tell me. Though this is the first time you've chosen Jack's house."

Something clicked in Sam's dream consciousness. "This has happened before?"

Daniel nodded. "Every night since you arrived here," he said. "You really need to work on remembering your dreams."

Sam shook her head. "Why are you here?"

"To help you get home, Sam," he replied. "You need to go home. Doctor Weir told you today that getting home is her first priority for you."

"I know."

"Why isn't it yours?"

She leaned back defensively. "What makes you think it isn't?"

"Sam." Daniel didn't go on until she met his eyes, so bright and blue. "You haven't been trying in a long time. Why did you give up?"

"It's not going to work," she replied. "No matter what I do, it's never going to work."

"There are other ways," said Daniel. "Why aren't you looking for them? Do you want this life you have so badly that you're willing to give up all hope of your old life?"

"Daniel, I –"

"I know what you're going to say," he interrupted. "Let me show you something."

* * *

  
At the end of the day, Jack O'Neill turned off the lights in his office and made the slow trek to the surface. It had been a month since Carter had disappeared, and little progress had been made. Daniel and Ke'ra were almost done translating the ruins on Vyus, and they had discovered that while their original conjectures about the device were correct, it had never worked properly. And none of the Ancients who had used it ever returned.

He had a quiet, uneventful drive home, a quiet, uneventful dinner, and a quiet, uneventful beer afterward. Then as he drained the last drops from it, the doorbell rang. Reluctantly, he got up to answer it. On the other side was the last person Jack ever expected to see on his front step.

"What do you want?" he said, gruffly.

"Hey," said the man, short, stocky, and overly eager. "I don't know if you remember me – we really only met for a minute once – I'm – "

"Pete Shanahan." Jack looked down at the empty beer bottle in his hand, wanting another. "What do you want?"

Pete had offered his hand, but wisely withdrew it. "Listen," he said, "I was just wondering if you... if you could help me get in touch with Sam."

"And why would I do that?"

"Because you're her friend," Pete replied, "or at least I assumed you are, from the way Sam talked about you." He swallowed. "We didn't really part on good terms, and I wanted to... I don't know, reconcile. But she won't answer my calls."

Jack closed his eyes for a moment, wondering what to say. Carter's disappearance was not the easiest subject to talk about, and he _really_ didn't want to discuss it with this guy. He only knew what Sam had volunteered, that Pete had shown up with a ring, that she had broken off the relationship entirely, and that for the month between their little adventure on P4X-242 and her disappearance, Pete had been trying to contact her. Apparently, he hadn't given up.

"If she doesn't want to talk to you..." he began.

"Listen, Jack – " Pete stopped abruptly. "Can I call you Jack?"

"Sure," Jack replied, though his tone was less than enthusiastic.

"Okay, Jack," said Pete. "I'm a cop. I investigate things for a living. I went by her house, and... let's just say some things were obvious."

"Get to the point, Shanahan," said Jack, resisting the urge to close the door and go to bed.

"No one's been in that house in weeks," Pete replied. "The mail's coming out of the mailbox, the flowers are dead, the food in the refrigerator's all bad. Where is she?"

It took Jack a minute to process what Pete had just said. "Wait a minute," he said. "You broke into her house?"

"I didn't break in," said Pete, after hesitating. "She has a spare key hidden."

"You went into her house without any kind of permission and snooped around."

"Listen, I've been worried sick that something happened to her!" Pete shifted his weight. "I happen to care about her a lot!"

"You're not the only one!"

* * *

  
With a start, Sam awoke, and for hours she lay awake, desperately trying to remember what had startled her so badly.

* * *

  
John lived on the outskirts of town – as close as he could be to the center of Colorado Springs and still see stars – so he wasn't terribly surprised when six o'clock rolled along and Elizabeth hadn't arrived. He'd actually been working on setting up furniture most of the day, so it wasn't like he desperately needed the help, but he enjoyed his boss's company even when they were at work, and when they weren't, she was always a lot of fun.

The back door of his house afforded an impressive view of the area around Colorado Springs, and John liked to stand there and watch the deer and whatever other wildlife wandered into his back yard or the park behind it. Tonight there were a few birds picking at late berries on a vine near the fence, but nothing else of note as John munched on a cookie. Then the doorbell rang, and, brushing crumbs off his shirt, he went to see who it was.

When he jogged into the foyer, John saw a familiar curly-haired silhouette through the curtain. He opened the door with a flourish. "Why, it's Doctor Weir!" he announced.

She smiled. "Sorry I'm late," she said, stepping in a little cautiously. "Your handwriting is terrible."

"And this has what to do with you being late?"

Elizabeth pulled a napkin from her pocket, the napkin he'd scribbled an invitation on a week earlier. She pointed at a word. "I drove around for ten minutes before I figured out that this was Terrace Drive, not Thaddeus Drive."

"You mean to tell me you haven't gotten used to my handwriting yet?" he asked.

"Why do you think I require everything given to me to be typed, John?"

He stood behind her to help her remove her leather coat. "I think the unofficial reason was 'I don't want to be blind before I'm forty.'"

Elizabeth laughed a little and took a few steps deeper into the house. John let his eyes linger on her longer than he probably should have. He'd seen her wear that low-cut, red top before, but never without something over it. Even when she'd come over to his old apartment six weeks earlier to help him pack, she'd been wearing a very professional suit. At that point, he'd started to wonder if she knew that jackets would come off.

Hanging up her coat in the front closet, he said, "So I ordered pizza. Should be here in a few minutes. You want something to drink?"

"I can wait till the food arrives."

"All right."

"You've got a nice place here, John," she said, pausing to straighten a picture frame. "You've done a good job making it look like..."

"Like it isn't the house of a single male?"

She smiled as though she were trying not to. "Something like that."

The doorbell rang again and John hurried back through the foyer. There was a kid on the other side with the pizza. Quickly he pulled his wallet out and paid for it. When he closed the door again and turned around, Elizabeth was digging in her purse. "Let me cover half of that," she said.

John held up his free hand. "You're here as a favor. The least I can do is feed you."

She looked like she wanted to protest, but a pointed look quelled her. "That does smell good."

"Best pizza in town."

Together they walked into the kitchen, where John had a bottle of wine sitting on the counter. As he opened it and began pouring two glasses, she asked, "Is this the bottle I gave you as a housewarming gift?"

"Yep," he replied. "Just hadn't had a good time to appreciate the cabernet..." He glanced at the label and saw a word he couldn't hope to pronounce. "Cabernet something or other."

"Cabernet sauvignon," Elizabeth informed him, taking a glass when he offered it.

"Right."

Together they filled plates with pizza slices and ate at the kitchen table. For second helpings, though, they moved into the living room, and Elizabeth had picked the movie they were going to watch. To John's surprise, she selected _The Hunt for Red October_ , claiming that it was one of her favorites. However, he soon learned that the real motivation behind picking the movie was driving him crazy. He'd forgotten that she spoke Russian.

By the time they were through opening credits, he'd told her to stop translating the "Hymn to Red October" three times, and she wasn't hiding her smile very well. Forty-five minutes into the movie, though, she started singing along and John elbowed her so hard she nearly tipped over.

When they'd finished eating, John put the remainder of the pizza in his refrigerator and brought in one of the boxes of furniture to assemble. Elizabeth didn't shy away when he handed her a screwdriver and they got to work putting together his new coffee table. Eventually, though, he was absolutely no help, as she was leaned over it and he could see right down her shirt. She was wearing a red bra.

If she noticed his distraction, she didn't show it. Having finished the coffee table, they moved on to assembling bookcases and filling them. John kept stealing glances at her, a habit he'd developed long before tonight. He'd acknowledged to himself a long time ago that he was attracted to her. They'd been friends almost since they began working together, but there was too much risk for disappointment and incredible hurt for them both if he tried to move their relationship to another level. He didn't want to lose her as a friend, and that was enough inducement to make him give up thoughts of her as anything more.

Almost, anyway.

* * *

  
The country surrounding the SGC was beautiful, and Sam had always loved this part of Colorado. She was in the mountains, but not far away were empty plains. On Saturday evening, Jack picked her up from the SGC and they headed east. Sarah had just been released from the infirmary, and she'd wanted to catch up on work with Jonas before he accompanied Doctor Weir off-world the next day. Their plans for the evening scuttled, Jack seemed to be making up their itinerary as they went. His telescope was in the back of his truck. There was a snowstorm coming over the mountains, but they'd have a few hours of stars before the clouds rolled in.

The stars were familiar, but there were still times when such familiarity was more alarming than comforting. Tonight, though, Sam was willing to study the night sky for what it was, constant but ever-changing, out of reach but only a step away. Even so, something else troubled her, a half-forgotten whisper, a wisp of dreamtime clairvoyance just beyond the reach of memory. There was a flash of an image, but she couldn't remember what it was, and hadn't been able to since the dreams began. And she didn't know why she was thinking about it now.

"Something wrong?" Jack asked, adjusting the telescope as they were sitting in the bed of the truck.

Sam took a deep breath of the crisp night air. "Just thinking," she said.

"I'd be shocked if you ever stopped." He gave her a small, teasing smile. "Let me guess, you wake up in the middle of the night, having solved problems in your dreams?"

It was true. She'd woken up many times with sudden solutions to math problems. She nodded, but then she started thinking about her recent dreams. There was a man's voice, so familiar, telling her she needed to figure out how to get home. But Sam couldn't remember anything else.

With his free hand, Jack pointed out a constellation on the horizon. "Cassiopeia's rising."

Sam nodded. "We've actually been to a planet orbiting a star in that constellation."

"Really?"

"Yep," she replied. "That was one of our first missions. The one where we all turned into neanderthals."

"Otherwise known as you jumping me in the locker room." As Sam smiled with mild embarrassment, Jack asked, "That _was_ you, right? That was before there was... you and her?"

She nodded again. "The realities diverged not long before Daniel died."

"Well," he said, drawing the word out, "I... As hard as it was at first, I... I'm actually kind of glad you're here."

Sam sighed. She'd half-hoped this wouldn't happen. "Jack, you – you know – Jack, I'm not her."

He looked down at her knowingly. "And I'm not him."

She knew what he meant by that, but they both took a long time to absorb it. There were silent acknowledgments wrapped in what they had said, and when Sam thought she understood everything he meant, she nodded.

And then, with some hesitation, he kissed her.

It was soft, subdued, and over almost as soon as it had begun. Sam kept her eyes closed for a long time, taking in the moment which had not surprised her, except in its tenderness. Jack stroked her cheek once, his callused fingers somewhat rough, though his touch was gentle. Then he cupped her face and kissed her again.

They did not rush through it as Sam brought her hand to rest on his shoulder. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered if it was as strange to Jack as it was to her. For her it was the first time in her right mind, and for him it must have felt like the thousandth time. He certainly seemed like this was familiar territory.

For a long time afterward, they sat there together in a loose embrace, silent. There was nothing to be said, not yet. Eventually they decided to go back, before the snow reached this place. At the base, Jack wished her good night with a hesitant kiss on the cheek. Sam squeezed his hand and walked away. Things had suddenly become much more complicated, and if she was entirely truthful with herself, she wasn't sure she minded. But that night she dreamed again, and when morning came, all she could remember was the voice telling her that she needed to go home.

* * *

  
When the movie was over, Elizabeth said she was cold. John disappeared down the hallway and returned a minute later with a fleece jacket. It was too big for her, but it was warm. He also made them hot chocolate, and they stood at the window by the kitchen table and watched as snow began to fall.

"Do you need to head home soon?" John asked.

Elizabeth shook her head and sipped her hot chocolate. "It's early yet."

"So why is it you're heading to the alpha site?"

"I need to brief the commanders there on the Anubis threat," she replied. "We're going to be in the midst of a full-scale war soon and the last thing I want is to have the DOD thinking I'm not up to this."

"You think they'd take the base away from you?" he asked, sounding surprised.

"Well, it wouldn't be the most illogical thing they've ever done, but if they replace me, I'm going to need to find a new job. Which would be easier if I didn't have a few years unaccounted for on my résumé. That didn't quite occur to me when I took this job."

"Yeah, but you'd have a long line of employees eager to provide very vague references."

Elizabeth laughed at that, and he gave her a quiet smile, an expression she'd rarely seen from him. "Seriously, you're valuable to the SGC," he said. "The Pentagon would have to be nuts to get rid of you entirely."

"I don't want to go back to Washington," she admitted. "Especially since remaining involved in the program would probably mean working at the Pentagon."

"You've got an objection to five-sided regular shapes?" he joked.

She smiled, but not for long. "I don't want to leave."

For a moment John's eyes widened, and Elizabeth realized the double entendre. She meant that she didn't want to leave Colorado or the SGC, not that she didn't want to leave John's house, but she blushed anyway. She was standing in his kitchen and wearing his clothing, after all.

He looked down and cleared his throat slightly. "If this snow keeps up you might not be able to fly out of the state."

"Somehow I don't think that's going to save my job."

"Well, civilians run the military," he pointed out, before taking a drink from his own mug. "It's not like you'd be the first civilian in this country to make decisions about a war."

She nodded, though she refrained from adding that she would probably be the first civilian woman in that position. He almost certainly knew that already. "It's just the uncertainty of it all," she said. "I want to keep my job, but I also just want to know whether I'm keeping it or not."

"You're the best commander I've ever had, Elizabeth," John replied, enough warmth in his voice that she met his gaze in surprise. "It'll all turn out."

There was a lot he wasn't saying aloud. As she watched him, her thoughts turned in another direction, one that had explained her reluctance to come tonight and in equal part explained why she had come. There was something happening between them, whether it was a good idea or not. For a while now she'd suspected that he had a bit of a crush on her. Flattered as she was, she tried not to encourage it, but eventually she was going to have to admit that this thing between them wasn't strictly one-sided.

She hadn't had enough wine to justify it, but she stepped closer to him, and his gaze dropped to her mouth, as though he could read her thoughts.

She would have kissed him, too, if it hadn't been for the sound of a snow plow on the street. She gasped, rather involuntarily, and leaned away. John too seemed to realize the madness of what they were about to do and he was looking anywhere but at her. "The snow's heavier than I thought," Elizabeth said. "I should probably go."

He nodded. "You didn't have too much wine, did you?"

He wanted to make sure that she was sober enough to drive, sure, but she could imagine that he wanted to know that the moment that had just passed hadn't been a matter of alcohol. Quickly she shook her head, wondering at her own motives in reassuring him. "I'm sober."

She traded his fleece jacket for her own coat, and John walked her to her car. "Give me a call when you get home, okay?" he said. "Some of the roads could be pretty bad and I want to know you get there safe."

"Of course," she replied. "Are you going to be at work tomorrow? I can't remember if you're scheduled to be there."

"Yeah, I am," he said. "Well, I'm not scheduled but I've got paperwork that isn't getting done here."

She smiled at that as she got into her car. "Then I'll see you before I go."

"Good night, Elizabeth," he said, brushing the snow from her side mirror.

"Good night, John," she replied, before she could change her mind and not leave after all.

* * *


	10. Chapter 10

  
Elizabeth left John's place plenty early, but she didn't slept well. She was late getting out of bed the next morning and had to rush around to get to work. Sergeant Harriman was waiting in her office with a worried look on her face when she entered. "Well, today's off to a great start," she said.

He looked at her sympathetically. "I'll bring you some coffee."

"If you could also have something resembling breakfast sent in, that'd be great."

It was good to be queen, she thought when a tray with breakfast and coffee arrived. Elizabeth ate quickly while she went over a report Sarah Gardner had left on her desk the previous night. A few minutes after she'd finished eating, though, Sam knocked on the doorpost. "Sam," she said, halfway into a yawn. "Come in."

The other woman took a few slow steps toward the desk. "You wanted to see me?"

Abruptly she remembered leaving a message for Carter the previous evening, just before leaving the base. "Yes," Elizabeth replied, standing up. She gestured to the door. "This way."

They headed toward the elevator, and on the way to a lab six levels up, Elizabeth explained that SG-4 had returned the day before with a load of strange objects no one had ever seen before. She and the other scientists had hopes that Sam might be able to shed some light on them, though Elizabeth did reiterate that she didn't want to distract Sam from figuring out how to return home.

When they entered the lab, Sam stopped in her tracks, eyes wide. "What is it?" Elizabeth asked.

"ZPMs," said Sam. "There must be a dozen of them – where did you find them?"

"According to Major Thompson, there were at least twenty more," Elizabeth replied. "But what are they?"

"Zero-point modules," the scientist answered. "They're power sources used by the Ancients. We've been looking all over for more of these – you just _found_ thirty of them?"

"Well, Major Thompson said there was _some_ hunting involved," Elizabeth clarified, "but essentially, yes." She picked up one of the objects, which looked like a stained glass cylinder which had been broken off at the top. "What's so special about these?"

"They can provide enough energy to power a jump to another galaxy."

Elizabeth's eyes widened. "You're kidding," she said. "We've been working on ways to power the gate for that since I got here."

"Well, there are some tests I should run these through," Sam stated. "These things can be tampered with, and the results can be less than pleasant."

"All right. Do whatever you need to do."

At that moment there came a rap at the doorframe, and both women turned to see John standing there. "Doctor Weir," he said, "we just had a scheduled contact with the Tok'ra."

"And?" Elizabeth prompted.

"Seems one of their people is missing," he said, reluctantly. "He had a GDO."

"Great. I'll add that to the list of things that are going well today," she remarked dryly. "What are the Tok'ra doing about it?"

"They're trying to find him, but they aren't optimistic."

Elizabeth sighed and turned to Sam. "I'll let you work on this, Colonel," she said. "Sheppard, walk with me."

They headed out of the lab, and John clasped his hands behind his back. "Not often we see you in BDUs around here," he commented.

"Well, there's no sense in wearing a suit to the alpha site," she replied. "It's not like I'm there to impress them." She tugged at the black top. "It's a little big."

"It's supposed to be comfortable."

They boarded the elevator and found themselves alone for a few moments. "So was there anything else?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I was kind of wondering if you were all right after last night."

"John," she said, looking away.

"Look, I can be pretty dumb when it comes to women," he said, "but I'm pretty sure something happened last night."

Elizabeth let out a little defeated sigh. "I can't do this in the ten minutes I've got before I leave," she replied. "Can we have this conversation when I get back? I promise, I won't back out of it again."

As the elevator came to a stop, John nodded. Then the doors opened and he abruptly changed the subject. "The missing Tok'ra's last known location wasn't far from Vyus," he said.

"So what are we thinking?" Elizabeth asked. "Anubis has been picking up old territories, and he came across a Tok'ra and snatched him?"

John shrugged as they turned toward her office and the gate room. "Seems as likely as any other explanation. Of course, it's possible that he fell into a giant hole and hasn't managed to climb out yet."

Elizabeth smiled and looked down. "Do you always see the bright side?"

They walked the rest of the way in silence. John then followed her into the gate room, even though she didn't ask him to. Assembled at the foot of the ramp were Jonas and Captain Lovejoy, who would be accompanying her to the alpha site. "Gentlemen," she said, clasping her hands behind her back. "Are we ready?"

"Whenever you are, Doctor," Jonas replied. Behind him, Lovejoy nodded.

The gate began dialing, and Elizabeth gestured to it. "Then let's go."

She lingered behind a moment, walking slowly up the ramp after the others had gone through the event horizon. "Hey," John said. She turned around to see him cross his arms over his chest. "Be careful out there, okay?"

Elizabeth nodded, hearing her own words from two days earlier repeated to her and knowing that he meant it as much as she had. "I will."

* * *

  
On blueprints, the alpha site had seemed massive, and each visit to M77-X43 made it appear larger and larger as Elizabeth discovered more and more of it. Jackson Air Force Base, as it was officially called, sprawled out to the size of lower Manhattan, several times larger than the base under Cheyenne Mountain. But it too was tucked away under a mountain range – well, most of it. There was a separate base some twenty miles away in a wide plain, where they housed several squadrons of F-302s, and where they were developing the next breed of space fighter, currently designated the X-304.

Inside the gate room, things didn't look that much different than the gate room back on Earth. The control room was to the left of the gate instead of directly in front, but that wasn't a major difference. When Elizabeth, Jonas, and Captain Lovejoy stepped through the event horizon, there were SFs in the room as there would be at Cheyenne Mountain when she returned, and Colonel Reynolds was waiting for her. "Doctor Weir," the man said, extending his hand to her as she came down the steps. "Welcome to Jackson Air Force Base."

"Always a pleasure," Elizabeth replied, shaking his hand. "You know Jonas Quinn and Captain Michael Lovejoy, correct?"

"We've met." He shook Jonas' hand too, and Lovejoy came to attention. "At ease, Captain," Reynolds said, causing the captain to relax. The colonel turned his attention to Elizabeth again. "I've recalled my most senior officers. We should be ready to begin this briefing in about an hour."

She smiled. "That's about how long it'll take to get to the conference room, right?"

"We all know I have a big fort to hold down," the man replied, smiling back. "But the conference room you requested is only half an hour away by foot."

They started off out of the gate room then and made their way into the heart of the base. Once they reached the main artery of the sector, a narrow, open-top white vehicle drove up. Elizabeth looked at Reynolds and rolled her eyes. It was a long-standing joke between them that he had to have golf carts to take him around his base while she chose to get exercise by walking through hers.

The driver nodded to Elizabeth as the four of them got into the shuttle, and once the doors were all closed, he took off. The shuttle cars and these corridors had been mutually designed. Three of the vehicles in a row could travel comfortably through the wide main corridors, carrying six people each. Generally, however, they were treated as two-way streets, allowing pedestrians to use the halls too.

The group rode to the end of the hall, some ten minutes away, took an elevator up five levels, and walked for a few minutes before catching another shuttle for the rest of the trip. The sheer size of this place never ceased to amaze Elizabeth. It was probably about three times larger than the personnel there really required, but it had been designed to handle refugee situations as well as nearly all the military exploration currently undertaken by the SGC. Colonel Dixon's and John's teams were unusual at Cheyenne Mountain.

They arrived in the conference room, where there were only three seats remaining around the oblong table. The officers stood as the small group entered, and Colonel Reynolds deferred to Elizabeth to begin. "Please, be seated," she said.

As they shuffled into their chairs again, Reynolds said, "Let me get another chair."

"No need," she replied. "I can stand."

He, Jonas, and Lovejoy took the remaining seats, and Elizabeth walked around to the far end of the table. "Gentlemen," she began, "I want to thank you for assembling here on such short notice. I know you've been very busy, and you're doing excellent work here."

She picked up the remote control for the projector, which was suspended from the ceiling and would project onto the wall opposite her. "But I'm afraid I have some bad news," she continued. "In the last several weeks, we have witnessed a series of events, seemingly unconnected, but almost inexplicable. Our friend and ally Teal'c reported that his Jaffa explorers encountered naquadah mining on a planet whose technology did not require it. SG-17, based out of Cheyenne Mountain, encountered hostility from a group of Jaffa. The population of the planet Vyus has been wiped out. Most recently, the Tok'ra have reported that one of their own is missing.

"These cannot be isolated events." She paused, looking around the room. "Gentlemen, the Goa'uld may not be as defeated as we thought."

* * *

  
Carrying a ZPM as she might cradle a child in one arm, Sam made her way into Jonas and Sarah's lab, where the willowy British woman was busy taking notes about some artifact. When Sam walked in, Sarah looked up from her work and beckoned her to the table. "Hello, Sam," she said. "I see someone directed you to our mystery objects."

Carefully Sam set it down on the table. "It's not such a mystery to me," she replied.

"You've seen this before?"

"It's called a zero-point module," Sam explained, running her finger around the top rim of it. "An incredibly advanced energy source developed by the Ancients."

"You're joking," Sarah said, her disbelief evident. "Well, what can it do?"

"In my reality, we used one of these to make a jump to another galaxy," Sam replied, smiling a little as she looked down at the odd device. "There was also a weapon buried in the ice of Antarctica, and it was powered by a ZPM."

"Not another acronym," said the other woman. "Don't you have enough in the military without throwing more letters around?"

"At least you didn't try to correct me on how to pronounce the letter Z like McKay did."

"Well, it _is_ 'zed,' but you're right. Doctor McKay does have a tendency to be a little overbearing." At Sam's dubious glance, Sarah added, "All right. Very overbearing." She paused. "What's Rodney doing in your reality, anyway?"

"He's in another galaxy," Sam replied. "That's actually one of the nicer things about my reality. I don't have to worry about him showing up to meddle in my lab."

"Oh, not so cruel, Sam," said Sarah. "I rather like Rodney."

"Sarah, you like everyone."

They laughed for a while, before Sarah said, "So tell me more about these."

Sam picked it up and turned it over in her hands. "I've been working on a way to hypothetically use a ZPM to augment the power in the BC-302. It could significantly reduce travel time."

"Well, if you have some free time, you might ask Doctor Weir if you could try that out," Sarah suggested. " _Poseidon_ and _Megaera_ are both here on Earth for maintenance."

They were interrupted by a knock at the door, and both women turned to see Lieutenant Elliot in the doorway. "Colonel Carter," he said, "I hate to interrupt, but we've got a situation in the gate room."

Sam set the ZPM back on the table, this time in the middle so there would be no mishaps with people knocking it to the floor. "I'll be right there."

* * *

  
When Elizabeth finished speaking, a stunned silence filled every nook of the conference room. She couldn't even tell if anyone was breathing anymore. She wasn't sure that she was.

Finally, at the head of the table, Colonel Reynolds slowly revolved in his chair. He and Elizabeth simply watched each other for a while. Then, very quietly, he said, "It's happened, hasn't it?"

Elizabeth looked down at the table and moved a paper to the top of a small stack. "There were many among us," she said, "who wondered if the Goa'uld had really been defeated, if victory..." She glanced around the room at the men, some of whom still bore the scars of those final days of the war. "If victory," she continued, "could be bought with so few lives. I know the cost was high. I know that some of you paid the price of our freedom with the lives of people whom you loved. But we have bought these last few years on credit, and the creditor has come with the bill. We may yet have blood to give."

A tall, dark-haired man on Elizabeth's right shifted uncomfortably. "Doctor, if you don't mind my saying this," he began.

She smiled wryly. "Major Cartwright, correct?" He nodded, and she continued, "Major, I know it's not easy to hear this from a civilian who's going to sit in an office, safe on Earth while the rest of you go off and do the dangerous work."

He hesitated. "With all due respect, ma'am, yes."

"You have a point," she said. "But I was asked to take command of the Stargate program by our last President, and our sitting President confirmed my place at the head of this program. I intend to do my job and do it to the best of my ability. In order to do that, I will need the full support of each and every one of you."

A young Marine sitting across from Cartwright sat up a little straighter. "Ma'am," he said, "forgive me, but this all seems a little far-fetched. We've been noticing some weird things out there, but none of it seems to match up with what we know of the Goa'uld."

Elizabeth nodded to him. "We have a very good source, Lieutenant. I don't doubt her at all."

At the end of the table, Colonel Reynolds leaned forward. "Who is your source, Doctor?"

She looked at Jonas, who shrugged slightly. They had talked about whether or not to tell the people at the alpha site about Sam's presence. The Cheyenne Mountain base personnel only knew because Elizabeth refused to keep Sam under lock and key. But she supposed there was no getting out of it now. "Six weeks ago, we encountered an alternate reality," she said. "Or rather, it encountered us. Another version of Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter arrived in Cheyenne Mountain, and she's been there since."

This caused quite a stir among the officers in the room. In the midst of the murmurs, Reynolds asked, "You're saying that a dead woman showed up at the SGC and told you all this?"

"No," Elizabeth replied. "I'm sure Jonas would be more than happy to explain the multiverse theory to you after we're through here. This Colonel Carter comes from a reality in which the Goa'uld were not killed at their summit, and she knew a great deal about Anubis. She was able to connect some dots and give us a valuable lead."

Reynolds started to say something again, but Elizabeth cut him off. "This information is solid. I trust it." She leaned forward and placed her hands on the table. "The point is that we can presume that an attack on Earth in the near future is likely. Already I've recalled both _Prometheus_ and _Daedalus_. We have time to prepare for an assault on our home world, but we cannot afford any delays. We _must_ act now to protect our world."

A heavy, potent silence fell, and Elizabeth could tell that some of them still doubted the veracity of her claims. But none of them doubted her sincerity. She had that much, at least.

Then, in the distance, she heard a rumbling noise, and it grew louder and louder. "What the hell?" Colonel Reynolds said, getting to his feet. The ground began to quake beneath them, and when the rumbling turned into thunder, the world erupted into brilliant white. Elizabeth was thrown to the floor, and somewhere amid the smoke and chaos, she wondered at the irony of it all.

* * *


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on this chapter: I wrote this story before Colonels Caldwell and Mitchell were introduced to the franchise. I remember laughing a lot when the names were announced. ;) I thought about changing the names of the random Caldwell and Mitchell who appear in this story, but it's still kind of funny to me, so I decided to keep them as they were.

  
"What's the situation?" Sam asked as she came down the spiral staircase into the control room. There was an air of palpable tension, and beyond the window the gate was spinning. Colonel Dixon stood in the center of the room, hands at his waist. Sam nodded to him.

"The alpha site missed a scheduled contact," said Harriman, the technician on duty. "We waited ten minutes, dialed M77-X43, and were unable to establish a wormhole."

"When was that?" she asked, slipping into the seat next to the sergeant and pushing her hair out of her face. She really needed to get it cut.

He glanced at a clock. "The contact was supposed to be forty minutes ago. We've been attempting to dial every ten minutes. This is the fourth attempt."

Sam looked down at the screen as the sixth chevron engaged. Together they watched as the point of origin came up on the screen and the chevron failed to engage. "Chevron seven will not lock," Harriman announced.

Turning to the terminal in front of her seat, Sam said, "I'm running a full diagnostic on the gate. Have there been any problems today?"

"No, ma'am," said the sergeant. "We dialed the alpha site an hour ago, when Doctor Weir, Jonas Quinn, and Captain Lovejoy left for the conference there."

Sam studied the screen as information began scrolling across it. "I'm not seeing any irregularities here," she said. "Try dialing Vyus."

"Yes, ma'am."

The test went without incident, and Sam let out a long breath as the wormhole established. "This doesn't make sense," she said. "There must be a problem at the alpha site. How long has it been since the first attempt to dial?"

Harriman looked at the clock again. "Thirty-three minutes."

Sam drummed her fingers on the table for a moment before realizing that that was a Jack habit. "Wait five minutes and dial again," she said. "We'll just have to wait to see if they've got their door open."

* * *

  
When Elizabeth managed to open her eyes again, she was fairly certain that she had blacked out for a little while, even though she'd never blacked out before. Someone was turning her over, and through the white smoke she saw Jonas Quinn hovering over her. His mouth was moving, but she could barely hear him.

Slowly, he helped her sit up, and she looked around to survey the damage. The door to the conference room was completely torn off, along with about six feet of wall. Because of that, the ceiling had started to collapse, and she could see a desk starting to fall through from the floor above. The table in the room had been blown toward the wall, and the seven officers who had been seated on that side of it were trying to push it off of themselves. Meanwhile, Colonel Reynolds and the six other officers were trying to free them.

"Doctor Weir, are you hurt?" Jonas asked, more or less yelling into her ear.

"I don't know," she said, still a little dazed. "I couldn't hear for a minute."

"Side effect of the blast," he explained. "None of us could either."

She took a deep breath and immediately coughed. The air was full of debris. "I can still feel everything."

"Good," Jonas replied. "That means you probably haven't broken anything immediately important."

The officers managed to right the table then, and Jonas scrambled off to help them. Colonel Reynolds approached then and offered Elizabeth his hand. "Are you all right?"

"Not really," she said, taking it and pulling herself up from the ground. "I'll live."

"Good," he said, looking to where the door had once been. "We have to get out of here. It's not sound."

Elizabeth nodded, and once they were sure no one was hurt too badly beyond bruises, they headed toward the emergency stairs in the building. Along the way were confused and frightened people who joined the entourage. The main power must have been knocked out, because the base was running on the dim lights powered by the backup generators. As they neared the base's secondary armory, they began finding bodies instead of survivors.

Reynolds started handing out weapons immediately. When he got to Elizabeth, his hand hovered over a P-90 for a moment, but he seemed to think the better of it. He picked up a handgun instead. "Do you know how to use one of those things?"

She nodded. Her father had insisted, when it became clear that she would eventually be sent into questionable situations to negotiate, that she learn how to fire a gun. He'd never insisted that she take one with her, but he wanted her to know how to use one, just in case. He'd probably never dreamed that the first time she'd have to use one would be on another planet entirely, across the galaxy from Earth.

The colonel gave her two, one in a hip holster and one loose. A few moments later, Elizabeth had the holster strapped to her leg and the other one in her hand. Reynolds gave her some extra ammunition too. Jonas watched her with a little concern. "I know what I'm doing," she said, anticipating his question. "It's just... been a while."

He didn't say anything. As soon as everyone was armed, Reynolds closed up the armory behind them. "There's a security office on Level 14," he announced. "We can get there and see what's going on in the gate room."

"If the gate room has power," Jonas put in.

The colonel sighed. "Right." He waved toward the nearest emergency shaft. "Won't know until we get there. Let's move out."

But on Level 14, things did not look promising.

There was auxiliary power in about three quarters of the base, but several of the monitors in the security office were showing nothing but the familiar snow of lost reception. Elizabeth gestured toward them. "Where are those cameras?" she asked.

Reynolds sighed. "Level 30," he said. "Sector A." He pointed at one. "That's the gate room."

Elizabeth nodded, inhaling slowly. "I see. And the others?"

"They're all in that general vicinity," said Colonel Caldwell, Reynolds' second-in-command. "I'm guessing the explosion came through the gate."

"How?" asked Major Cartwright, the man who had questioned her before.

"The Tok'ra," said Caldwell. "Doctor, you said one of them was missing."

Again, Elizabeth nodded. "I don't know how, but I suppose that's how the IDC got out," she replied.

Her mouth was open to say more, but Jonas cut her off. "Doctor, look," he said, nudging her in the ribs.

He was pointing at a monitor on the adjacent wall. Elizabeth came around the group, with Colonels Reynolds and Caldwell not far behind. On the monitor in question was a group of heavily armed Jaffa, a sight Elizabeth had most fervently wished never to see again.

She heard Reynolds swear under his breath. "Colonel," she asked, "where are they?"

"Level 17, Sector D," he replied. "They're heading for the infirmary."

Elizabeth raised her hand to the base of her throat as they watched, almost breathing in unison as the Jaffa made their way down the corridors. In the infirmary, the doctor on duty, a tall woman named Maria Chavez, and the nurses and medics were trying to get the wounded out, not knowing what was going on, except that something had shaken the ground.

Then the Jaffa arrived in the door. There was a moment's pause, in which Elizabeth wanted to scream a warning to Chavez and those with her. Even if she had, it would have come too late. The Jaffa started firing, and when the smoke cleared, no one was moving anymore.

Those in the security office stared in horror.

After a while, Reynolds turned. "We have to move, people," he said, heading toward the door. He didn't look to see if they would follow him, but follow they did.

* * *

  
When John got on the elevator, he found himself suddenly confronted with none other than Jack O'Neill, who seemed somewhat agitated that his solitary descent had been interrupted. John stepped into the box rather cautiously, feeling more than a little apprehensive about being in an enclosed space with him, without a chair and whip.

They rode down three levels before John worked up the nerves for small talk. Something about the older man's poise this morning was making Sheppard extremely jittery. "So," he said, voice almost cracking, "what brings you to Cheyenne this morning?"

"Sam called," Jack replied. "Some kind of emergency. My expertise is apparently needed."

Another floor went by. This had to be the slowest elevator in the history of... elevatory. John cleared his throat. "How about this weather?" he asked. "I'm not used to this kind of snow."

"It's not that bad."

In the ensuing silence, John finally put his finger on what (in part, at least) was making him so jumpy. It had been months since Sam had died, literally in his arms as Lieutenant Elliot dialed Earth in a desperate attempt to save her. In the interim he'd been making excuses about this conversation, but now he gave himself no choice but to plow into it. "Listen," he began, "there's something I've got to tell you..."

"Let me guess," Jack supplied, "you were hitting on my wife?"

John looked at him in confusion. "Uh, no, I was almost engaged when I met Sam and then you got married – where the hell did you get an idea like that?"

Jack shrugged. "Wild guess."

By then the elevator had reached Level 26, but Jack held down the button to keep the doors from opening. "Something's bothering you, Sheppard," he said. "It's been bothering you since... since Sam died. What gives?"

John leaned against the opposite wall of the elevator. He'd taken the first step, and now Jack had pushed him off the cliff. "I haven't seen you much since the memorial," he said. "You know I was with your wife when she died."

Jack was quiet for a minute. "You and Elliot."

John shook his head. "Elliot was dialing the gate. She was with me." He paused, making a careful study of his boots. "She wanted me to tell you something."

There was a long stunned silence, and when John finally worked up the nerve to look up again, he saw disbelief on Jack's face. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He started to say it was because he hadn't had the chance to, but he knew that wasn't true. Half a dozen times he'd gotten into his car and driven out toward Jack's house, only to invent an errand to distract himself from his goal. "I didn't feel comfortable," he offered weakly. "Have you ever had to deliver someone's last words?"

Jack nodded. "Buddy of mine died and asked me to tell his sister something. I had an eighteen-hour plane ride to think it over. The visit lasted five minutes."

John was quiet for a while, wishing he'd told Jack in the first place, but knowing there was nothing he could do about it. "She wanted me to tell you that she loved you," he said, very softly. "I tried to tell her that she'd tell you in person, but... She knew. We both knew."

Things grew silent again, and John remembered the look of shock on Elliot's face when he turned back and saw John closing Sam's eyes. They'd both thrown up when they got back to Earth.

Then the elevator opened, ushering in a slight draft. As the two men got out and walked toward the briefing room, John thought he heard Jack thank him.

The briefing seemed to have begun by the time the two men arrived. Colonel Dixon, Sam – the other Sam, John reminded himself – and Sarah Gardner were standing around one end of the table. Jack asked the obvious question. "What's going on, Dave?"

"Care to field that one, Colonel Carter?" Dixon asked.

"Sure." Sam looked up at Jack and John. "Ninety minutes ago the alpha site missed a scheduled contact. We've been attempting to dial M77-X43 every ten minutes since, and we've been unable to establish a connection."

John froze in place. "The alpha site," he repeated.

"I know," Sam said, casting him a look which might have been sympathetic. "It's probably the worst thing that could have happened. In my reality, Anubis had a weapon which could feed energy to a gate until it caused a catastrophic explosion."

"It blew up?" Jack asked.

"Yeah," Sam replied. "Long story."

"We assumed Anubis would attack here," Sarah said. "Why would he attack the alpha site? How would he even know where it is?"

Sam thought for a moment, and then turned to John. "You said the Tok'ra reported that one of their people was missing."

"The Tok'ra don't allow themselves to be compromised like that," Dixon interrupted.

"Anubis has mastery of Ancient technology," said Sam. "He has other ways of extracting information than torture. He once downloaded the entire consciousness of Thor into a mothership's computers."

"Thor's brain can fit into a mothership's computers?"

"Jack," said Sarah, Sam, and Dixon simultaneously.

After a short pause, Sarah asked, "What do we do?"

No one else had a ready answer, so John said what he'd been thinking since Sam had said that the alpha site was probably under attack. "We have ships. We can go there."

Dixon shook his head. "We've got no intelligence on the situation," he said. "And for all we know, this is a diversion before an attack on Earth. We can't just go traipsing off on a blind rescue."

"Doctor Weir recalled _Prometheus_ and _Daedalus_ yesterday," John argued. Technically he wasn't supposed to know that yet, but Elizabeth had told him the night before. "They'll be here in a matter of days."

"What are you suggesting?"

"Let me take the military personnel stationed here on the _Megaera_ ," said John. "We can't just leave Elizabeth and the others at the alpha site to die. You'll still have _Poseidon_ , and _Prometheus_ and _Daedalus_ will be here soon. You can spare _Megaera_."

"I've made some calculations," Sam added. "I can rig one of the zero-point modules you guys found into the ship's systems, and it'll probably make the trip in less than half the time it would take otherwise."

"Jack?" Dixon asked, looking at him.

Jack waited a while before answering. "You can't just leave them hanging, Dave."

After a long pause, the colonel looked back at John. "I have to call the President," he announced, before leaving the room.

A minute later, John was still standing in roughly the same position, while Jack and Sam had moved to a corner of the room to talk about something. A few feet away from John, Sarah tapped a pen on the table. "I'm sorry, John," she said.

"For what?"

"For not remembering sooner," she replied. "If it hadn't taken me so long, she wouldn't have been there now."

John blinked several times. "Who?"

"Doctor Weir," Sarah clarified. "It's upsetting you that she's there now, isn't it?"

John had no idea of what to say to that, so it was just as well that Dixon returned then. "The President has given his approval," he said. "Colonel Carter, the _Megaera_ is at Area 51 now for some scheduled maintenance. How long do you need to gather what you need for this science project?"

"An hour," Sam replied, walking back to the table.

"There'll be a plane waiting for you, then," said Dixon. "Sheppard, time to start recalling people."

* * *


	12. Chapter 12

  
Jonas did not need to utilize his keen deductive reasoning to figure out the fact that they were in very deep trouble at the alpha site. There was an unknown number of Jaffa running loose through the massive base. They had no idea how many people had actually survived the initial blast, so there was certainly no telling how many of them were escaping the Jaffa. The massacre they'd witnessed through the security cameras in the infirmary weighed heavily on his mind. And yet he couldn't help but wonder how all this had happened, and if there was some sign he'd missed which could have prevented it.

As the group made its way down one of the small corridors toward a ladder up to the next level, Elizabeth, who had been at his side since they left the armory, quietly said, "Jonas, stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Stop trying to figure out what you did wrong," she said. "You couldn't have stopped this."

Jonas shook his head. "There must have been something," he argued. "Some clue I missed. If I'd asked you this morning and found out about the Tok'ra–"

"Do you really think you would have figured it out?" Elizabeth asked. "This is an enemy we've never dealt with before. Conventional wisdom doesn't apply."

Jonas started to disagree, but in front of them, Colonel Reynolds held up his hand to stop them all. Elizabeth's breathing quickened ever so slightly. Then Reynolds gestured rapidly toward a door, and they all rushed through it, into a dark and cramped space.

While they waited, Jonas didn't breathe. One of his hands firmly held his P-90, while Elizabeth was gripping his left hand, probably without realizing it. She was scared, and understandably so. She was rarely off-world, except for particularly difficult negotiations, so the thought of being off-world in a crisis like this was probably overwhelming for her.

Footsteps came with the clanking of armor, passing by their hiding place with no pause. They waited until the steps had receded far beyond hearing before coming out of the closet they'd been hiding in. "There are too many of us," Reynolds said as the last of them filed out. "We have to split up."

Elizabeth finally released Jonas' hand as she nodded. "How many of us have codes they would need?"

Reynolds looked around the group. "You, me, Caldwell, Cartwright, and Morrison," he replied. "The five of us need to be in different groups."

He waved at some people, reorganizing the groups as they formed. Jonas stuck with Elizabeth, something which Reynolds didn't disrupt. "We're going to try to get to the gate room," he said. "We'll see if we can figure out what's going on and get a message out to the SGC to call for backup. The rest of you, head for the surface. You can hide out in the forest. There are escape hatches all over, including some through the ventilation system. Do anything you have to do to get out."

The Marine who had questioned Elizabeth's claim during the briefing was in the group as well. Lieutenant Ford seemed to have forgone any doubts he had about the reality of the threat, and he was now leading the small group. "We'll head to the kitchens," he said as they moved away from the other groups. "There's a direct route to the surface there for garbage disposal."

It didn't sound particularly pleasant, but the non-trivial portion of Jonas' brain quickly dismissed that thought. It sounded better than getting shot with a staff weapon sounded. But then again, he mused as he walked, Elizabeth still at his side, there were few things didn't sound better than that.

* * *

  
Convincing Colonel Dixon to let Sam go along with the _Megaera_ had been no trouble. There was a standard argument for that kind of thing – Sam had been the one to make the adjustments to the ship's hyperdrive, so if anything went wrong, she needed to be there to fix things.

Convincing him to let Jack go was another matter, and part of it was because Sam herself wasn't entirely certain _why_ Jack needed to go along. She had a feeling that it'd be a good thing to have him there, but Jack hadn't seen action in close to three years, and had never battled Anubis. But Sam still felt, for bizarre reasons she couldn't quite place, that he needed to be there. Mercifully, Dixon had given Jack an assignment as an "advisor" on the mission.

By the time artificial night fell on the _Megaera_ , Sam had realized in part why she wanted Jack there. They needed to talk.

So she made her way down the corridor, seven doors down, to where a light crept softly under Jack's door. She knocked, and a few moments later the door opened, revealing Jack in rumpled clothing and hair sticking up every which way. "Something wrong?" he asked, running a hand through his mess of hair.

She shook her head. "No," she said, "but I... we need to talk."

Jack stood away from the door, letting her walk into his room. The space seemed bare. He had apparently stored all his stuff away, but there were no personal items visible. The only evidence of human occupation was the rumpled state of the sheets on the bed.

"I'm sorry," Sam began. "Did I wake you?"

"No," he said. "Well, yeah, but... What gives, Sam?"

He sat down on the edge of the bed, leaving Sam to stand uncomfortably before him. There was no chair in the room. She shifted her weight. Talking about things wasn't exactly her forte, but she had to do it. "I wanted to ask you about what you said the other night." He just looked at her, eyebrows raised, so she continued, "I want to know if you meant it."

"Meant what?"

"That you know I'm not her."

There. She'd said it.

If he was angered by it, he didn't show it. "Why?" When she didn't answer, he stood up. "Because my wife died five months ago and I've kissed another woman?"

Sam met his eyes. "Yes."

He brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, and then touched a faint scar, years old, below her ear. "There's a scar on your leg," he said. "I saw it the first time you were at my house. How'd you get it?"

She closed her eyes. "A mission went bad," she replied. "The other Jack was there. He saved my life."

His hand moved back up to her cheek. "You're not her," he said, softly.

He kissed her then, but Sam didn't react. By that point, tears were threatening to escape their confinement beneath her eyelids. "Sam, what's wrong?" Jack asked.

She took a deep breath. "Why is it that you and I are together in every reality we find, and it always ends badly?"

He paused. "What do you mean?"

"In the first reality Daniel found, you and I were engaged, and then we both died," she said, well aware of the fact that she was babbling. "In the second, we'd been married, but you died. And now I'm here."

She finally opened her eyes, and she didn't care when tears started spilling down her cheeks. "And if I ever get home, it'll go back to the way it's been. I can't ask him to resign, and I know I can't let myself resign for him. Then even if we did end up together somehow, how am I supposed to know it wouldn't end the same way it has in every other reality?"

Wordlessly, awkwardly, Jack embraced her, and Sam squeezed her eyes shut against the tears. She felt him kiss the base of her neck as he rocked from one foot to the other. "Sam," he said, "I don't know a whole lot about this alternate reality stuff, but there's an infinite number of them, right?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"So somewhere out there, maybe there's a reality where we did end up together and got married, had kids..." There he squeezed her a little tighter. Sam didn't need an explanation. "Point is, if there's a zillion of these universes out there, who's to say there isn't one where it ended happily for us?"

She didn't answer, though she knew he was right. Surely the cosmos had no reason to be so cruel.

After a while, Jack pulled away from her, only to kiss her again. This time Sam felt no restraint, knowing that this couldn't last forever, but knowing that it was something they both wanted badly.

"Stay with me," Jack whispered.

His dark eyes were filled with the ideas he'd never express, like the heartbreak at the thought of spending the rest of his life alone, without the woman he loved. Sam knew this wasn't real and knew this couldn't last, but in the end, she nodded. For everything that told her to say no, her heart couldn't break his.

* * *

  
In Jack's arms, Sam slept and dreamt, dreamt and slept. The night was restless for her, though she did not wake.

Daniel was in her dreams again, a fact which she was beginning to realize consciously. They were sitting in Jack's living room, and Sam was once again wearing an old hockey jersey. Daniel was sitting in a recliner.

"So how is it you're able to show me things from my reality?" Sam asked, having wondered this (subconsciously, at least) since Daniel had first shown her Jack's encounter with Pete. "Can you access any reality?"

He shook his head. "No, just yours," he replied. "I'm sure you've got a theory."

Sam thought about it for a minute. "Is it because I'm here?" she asked. "My presence in this reality could serve as a link to mine."

"It's possible," he replied. "I've learned a lot of interesting things from your reality. Like what would happen if I broke the rules of the ascended beings."

"Yeah, I should probably tell these people about the Eye of Ra so they can get it before Anubis makes a grab for it."

They were quiet for a while, and Daniel glanced around the living room. "You didn't work on it today," he said.

"I was a little busy," Sam replied. "I've got more time to figure out this reality problem than these people have to save their friends."

"What about your friends?"

Sam closed her eyes at Daniel's gentle, but pointed question. She remembered all too well the sound of pain in her Jack's voice in those moments Daniel had shown her.

They were quiet for a while as Sam pondered his words. She thought about saying something about priorities, but decided against it, knowing it would sound heartless to admit to having decided that her own reality could wait. Then Daniel asked, "I've told you about Eshu, right?"

Confused, Sam frowned. "No."

"Huh, I could have sworn I had. Well, anyway," Daniel continued, "Eshu was a tribal African god – one of the trickster gods, like Loki in Norse mythology. He ruled over chance and fate. He was both loved and feared, because sometimes he'd give good fortune to his worshippers, and sometimes would amuse himself with their misfortunes."

"Why are you–"

"Eshu waits at the crossroads in life, at the big decisions, and tries to give advice," he said. "You've reached the crossroads of Eshu, Sam. You have a decision to make."

Sam closed her eyes. "What about Jack?"

"Jack has to make his own choices," said Daniel. "I know he's hurting. I know you want to help him. But how will he feel if you choose to stay, and he has to watch you die?"

"Daniel, you don't understand. The device doesn't work." Sam's voice nearly broke. "It's not a choice."

"Isn't it?"

For a long time, they stared at each other, blue eyes locked with blue. "Eshu is waiting for your choice, Sam. The answer is right in front of you." Then he looked past her and added, "I have to go."

"Go?" she repeated.

He didn't answer her. Instead, he stood, crossed the room, and touched her cheek. "I'm not leaving you, Sam," he said. "I've been with you since the moment you arrived here. If you choose to stay, I'll be with you till the end, to help you move on to the next part of your journey. But I hope it doesn't come to that."

"Ascension?" Sam asked.

Daniel nodded. "When the other you was dying, I offered to help her ascend, but she wouldn't take it. She wanted life."

When it ended and morning came, Jack asked her if she'd been dreaming, because he'd awoken in the night and found her crying in her sleep.

* * *

  
Getting to the kitchens was taking longer than Elizabeth expected. By the time they'd actually set off, it was nearing nighttime on the surface, though the adrenaline rush was keeping all of them wide awake. Still, Jonas and Lieutenant Ford insisted that they stop to rest for a few hours in an unused storage room, completely dark due to the power loss. The four men, all of whom handled weapons much better than she did, took watch in shifts, letting Elizabeth sleep.

During Jonas' watch, the last before they were to set off again, she was awake, sitting with him and talking softly. They spoke of irony, how none of them had imagined that Anubis would strike first at the alpha site. Jonas admitted that he'd wondered, but hadn't taken the threat seriously enough to mention it. It was no wonder he was blaming himself.

When the others roused, they moved off again, taking slow, circuitous routes to avoid the Jaffa patrols. They were lucky, but it was becoming increasingly obvious to them that things were going to get sticky very soon. If they survived the Jaffa, they were going to have to contend with a total lack of supplies until they reached the kitchens. The base had been designed to withstand attack from above and could easily outlast a siege, but it was not necessarily equipped to deal with attack through the gate. Of course, that was never supposed to happen.

What made matters worse was the state of the base. Occasionally their escape route had to be changed as they encountered the structural instability that had been caused by the explosion. Walls were collapsing and floors had fallen. The alpha site, which was supposed to be a refuge for both the Tau'ri and their allies, had suddenly become a dangerous place for everyone, including the Jaffa from whom they were trying to escape.

Elizabeth's father, an architect by trade, had often explained various facets of building design to her, saying that one could learn a great deal about the people who built a structure from its design. She wasn't sure what he would have said about this base, but at the moment she didn't much care. She was more concerned about the fact that every time they opened a door, they were potentially disrupting a system already rendered dangerous by the blast.

Jonas, perceptive as he always was, noticed the way she held her breath as they crossed under the lentils and asked her about it. "It's nothing," she said, knowing she was a terrible liar when she wasn't in control of the situation, but not wanting to worry the others with her overanalysis of the situation.

Not long after, they heard footsteps.

Quickly they ducked into an unlit room, hoping that the door was firmly shut before the Jaffa were in view of it. They hid breathlessly as the clanking sound grew louder and then receded. Somewhere nearby, however, something was creaking, and Elizabeth couldn't make out what it was. The group had been waiting until they were sure the Jaffa were no longer nearby, but suddenly from above there there came a loud groaning.

Elizabeth looked up, though she knew it was dark and she could not see. Then something snapped, and the ceiling came crashing down upon them.

* * *

  
Aboard the _Megaera_ , things were quiet, and John Sheppard was slowly going mad.

A day and a half to prepare and three days in transit meant a hundred and eight hours in which John was going to be wondering what was going on at the alpha site and wondering how bad things had gotten for Elizabeth. For ninety hours of the ordeal, he'd been correcting himself, reminding himself that there were more people in danger than just her, but six hours earlier he'd given up. There was no point, during the last eighteen hours, in denying that it was Elizabeth he was worried about.

Early in the morning, he rose and began to wander about the _Megaera_. She was a beautiful ship, and she made him realize why sea captains of a more romantic time loved their ships so. Though she was the same class as _Prometheus_ , _Daedalus_ , and _Poseidon_ , she was more elegant than her older siblings. Granted, John hadn't spent much time on any of the BC-303s, but he'd spent enough to appreciate the subtle differences between the first three and the fourth.

To the engine room he wandered, not really paying much attention to where he was, so long as he stayed out of the way of those who were actually working. But when he ventured into the engine room, he found a sight which had once been familiar: Sam was on her back under a large and complex-looking piece of machinery, tinkering.

John tapped lightly on the wall near the door. "Mind if I come in?" he asked.

Sam rolled out from under the work she was doing. "Sure," she replied, rolling back under. "Just don't be surprised if I ask you to help."

He grabbed an empty crate, turned it over, and sat down. "So what brings you into the engine room at this time of day?" he asked.

"Fewer people in here now," Sam said. "And I couldn't sleep anyway. You?"

"Couldn't sleep," he replied. "What are you doing under there?"

"I'm checking the alignment of the ZPM's connection with the hyperspace engine," she replied. "This thing's energy output is amazing. It's running at five times the efficiency of the naquadria reactor."

"Guess it helps that you're not having to constantly account for the instability of the naquadria."

Sam rolled out again and sat up on her mechanic's cart. "Of all the things I wish I could figure out, that's probably the second on my list."

"What's the first?" John asked.

"Personal." She exhaled deeply and slowly. "I'll be happy when all of this is over," she added quietly, though John didn't fully understand where that comment had come from.

"Me too," he said anyway. "I wish I'd gone with her."

"With Doctor Weir?" John nodded, and Sam said, "You really are close to her, aren't you?"

"I joined the SGC about two days before she did," he replied. "Newbie bonding, I guess."

John sighed, and Sam lay back and pulled herself under again. "I know she knows how to use a gun," he continued, "but she's not like the other people at the alpha site. They've all had recent training. Elizabeth hasn't."

"Well, as long as she's with the others, she should be all right," Sam replied. "Can you hand me that Allen wrench?"

He picked up the tool in question, an L-shaped piece of metal with a socket on one end, and placed it in her hand. "Thanks," she said.

"No problem."

"So how was it that you two became friends anyway?" Sam asked, though with some difficulty; she was clearly trying to tighten something with the wrench. "It's not like she has time to go out of her way to become good friends with every new person."

He hesitated. "It's a long story."

"I've got time if you do."

John picked up a screwdriver from the ground and turned it over in his hand. The other Sam hadn't known much about this either. She and Jack had been so occupied with wedding plans that it had been a few months before she had the time to really get to known John. By then, the personal crisis which had caused Elizabeth to befriend him was over.

"I had a girlfriend back when I joined the SGC," he said, tracing a groove on the screwdriver handle with his thumbnail. "Claire and I were pretty serious. I was thinking about asking her to marry me before I joined."

Sam rolled out to grab the pliers at John's feet. "What happened?" she asked.

"I joined the SGC," he replied. "I couldn't tell her what I was doing anymore, and that really bothered her."

"Man, does that sound familiar," Sam said, a comment made almost to herself. John decided not to ask her to explain it, knowing that there were a lot of things he didn't know about her. For all he knew, she had dated some creepy stalker.

"Anyway," he continued, "it got to the point where I was kind of distracted at work. Elizabeth pulled me into her office after a briefing and asked me what was wrong. I just spilled everything."

"Kind of like now?" Sam asked, not without a hint of dry amusement in her voice.

"Yeah," John replied, smiling a little. "We got to talking about things. Relationships and such. She was still with this guy Simon then. But she told me that if Claire wasn't willing to accept classified as an answer, she probably wouldn't have been able to handle the truth either."

The blonde woman rolled out again and sat up, pushing hair from her face. "She's probably right," she said. "So what happened?"

"Claire and I talked a couple nights later, and we ended it. Elizabeth kept me busy with reports and stuff for a few days after that. I think she was making up stuff to keep me occupied." He glanced down at the screwdriver, still in his hand. "So yeah. She helped me through a tough time. After that I realized it was possible to be friends with the boss, and I guess she realized that the military types around the base weren't all machines."

Sam sat there for a minute, her arms resting on her knees. "I know you're worried," she said. "She's in good hands."

"Yeah."

There was a long pause in which neither spoke, until Sam stretched out her legs and then put her feet back on the floor. "So," she said, "can I have my screwdriver back?"

John laughed a little. "Sure."

He turned it over and placed the handle in her outstretched hand. "Thanks," he added.

She smiled at him and rolled under the block again.

* * *

  
When Elizabeth remembered to, she opened her eyes again, and in the all-consuming darkness of the room, she saw a shimmer. She thought it was a trick of her mind, but a voice accompanied it. "Doctor Weir!" the voice called, though whispering. "Lieutenant Ford!"

She groaned.

There were other names too, names Elizabeth couldn't recall. There were sounds of digging. Then someone came crawling over the rubble toward her. "Doctor Weir!" cried the Marine.

It was then that she realized what exactly was going on. The ceiling and much of the walls had caved in around them, and she was trapped under the rubble with only her face and one hand mercifully exposed. Someone above grabbed her hand. "Doctor, we'll get you out," Jonas was saying, around a small flashlight held between his teeth. "Just try to stay quiet. We're not sure if the Jaffa are going to be back to inspect the collapse."

The four men started digging. Elizabeth herself was drifting in and out of attentiveness. In her alert phases she realized that she probably had a concussion, and something warm was trickling down her face. By the time they'd gotten her torso half-freed, they decided to try to lift her out. But unfortunately it was during a period of alertness, and the pain of being moved was suddenly so intense that she had to bite her tongue until it bled to keep from making more than a whimpering noise.

She heard someone swear once they had her out. "How deep is that in?" Captain Derrick asked.

Next to her, Jonas said, "We've got bigger problems."

"I think I have a concussion," she said, her shallow breaths punctuating the sentence in odd places.

"Yeah, I think you do too," Jonas replied. "Look at this," he said, addressing someone else as he shone the light in her face. "I don't think this cut's very deep, but it's bleeding pretty badly."

"Head injuries always do. It'll clot," said Major King. "She doesn't seem too disoriented, so it's probably not that severe a concussion. She's got debris lodged in her leg, and that's a bigger problem."

Of course, as Elizabeth tasted bile rising into her mouth, she had a very different idea of what was the bigger problem.

Captain Derrick was actually quite graceful about her having vomited all over his shoes. Meanwhile, King was saying, "That's a good sign, actually. Means her concussion isn't that bad. Jonas, check her pupils."

Jonas picked up his flashlight again and asked, "For what?"

"Make sure her pupils are responsive, and that they're the same size. Move the flashlight from the left corner of the eye to the right."

Jonas shining the light in her eyes turned out to be a good distraction from King pulling whatever it was out of her leg. It still hurt, but by then she was drifting away again. "Where's John?" she asked.

"He's not here," Jonas replied, moving the flashlight around in front of her.

Tears started welling up in her eyes. "He was supposed to be here," she said, "after his mission."

"King, what's going on?" the Kelownan asked.

"It's the concussion," said the other man. "It's okay, this is normal."

Something King did send spears of pain through her body. Elizabeth started to scream, but Jonas suddenly clamped his hand over her mouth. He held his hand there firmly, roughly, and then other hands were holding her legs down as she cried and shook with the pain. She had no idea what was going on or why they were doing this to her, but it hurt so badly.

After a while, the hands went away, and the pain simmered to a low boil. "We have to move," said one of the voices around her.

They helped her up, and Jonas moved to her left side to support her. "It'll be okay, Doctor," he said, extinguishing his light so they could move in darkness.

She was cogent again within a few minutes, and a little embarrassed about what she had said and done under the influence of the concussion. The others were understanding and said nothing about it. An hour passed, and with each slow step they took, the pain in Elizabeth's leg increased.

Five times they had to hide from the Jaffa, and each time, hiding was more difficult than the previous. Finally, as they reached one of the arterial corridors on the base, in which hiding places would be harder to find, she said to Jonas, "I can't go any farther."

Jonas froze. "What do you mean?"

"I'm slowing you down," she said. "You can't make it out of here alive if you've got me with you."

"Doctor, no."

The others stopped too, turning to form a circle. "Doctor Weir, we can't leave you," Major King protested.

"You have to," she said. "Besides, I don't know how much farther I can walk."

"We'll carry you if we have to," Ford replied. "We're not just going to leave someone behind because she's hurt."

"You will if I order you to, Lieutenant," Elizabeth said. "I have two guns with me, and some extra ammunition. You're not leaving me unprotected."

"You don't have supplies," Derrick said. "Unless you can find water quickly, you won't last more than a day or two."

"I know." Elizabeth looked him squarely in the eye. "And we'll all be dead unless you can get out of here."

"Doctor," said King, "are you sure about this?"

Elizabeth nodded. "Go."

Slowly, Jonas released her. She landed her weight on her injured left leg and nearly screamed from the pain of it. The four men began walking away from her slowly. "Go," she repeated.

Twenty feet away, Jonas turned around and started back, but Elizabeth took a few steps backward. "Jonas, I'm ordering you," she said. "Go."

Anguish clear on his face, he turned away.

She stood there watching until they reached a corner far down the corridor, and Jonas looked over his shoulder one last time. Then they were gone, and Elizabeth slowly moved down the corridor in the other direction, looking for a hiding place as tears flowed down her dirt-covered cheeks. She was alone, and there was no hope of rescue.

* * *


	13. Chapter 13

  
As soon as the _Megaera_ dropped out of hyperspace and entered orbit above M77-X43, they realized that they were in for some serious action. A Goa'uld mothership was already hovering over the alpha site.

"All pilots to the fighter bay!" a voice called over the ship's intercom.

Through the halls, people were running in every direction. When Sam found her way into a column of pilots heading down a stairwell, the ship suddenly rocked and everyone lurched. "We've been hit!" someone yelled.

"The shields can handle it," Sam said, mostly to those around her. It would take a minute or two longer, but she'd programmed the ship to divert power produced by the ZPM into the shields as soon as they arrived. No one questioned her on the matter.

When she reached the bay, the scene was one of practiced efficiency. Only she and Jack, whom she met near the entrance, seemed out of sorts, and even they knew roughly what they were supposed to be doing.

Sheppard was halfway up a ladder into a 302 when he looked over his shoulder and saw the two of them standing and watching for a moment. He jumped down, waving to his copilot to continue up into the cockpit. "Are you two okay with this?" he asked as he ran up to them. He seemed very tense.

"Yeah," Jack and Sam said at once. They shared a mildly amused glance.

"Well, let's get moving," John said as pilots pushed around them.

The dark-haired man sprinted back to his fighter while Sam and Jack made their way to their own. Sam had known this was a possibility, but the thought of actually having to fly one of these things in real combat was always a little overwhelming. Even more overwhelming was the fact that she wouldn't be flying second seat this time. She was going to be in the front.

"You okay?" Jack asked as they pulled on their helmets.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sam replied.

Jack started going through the pre-flight checklist, a remarkably odd experience, since most of Sam's previous experience in the 302 had meant that she was reading off things for the pre-flight check. The fighter was in optimal condition, so Sam tapped the comm button. "Red Seven is go," she said, as soon as there was a break in the other pilots checking in with their squadron leaders.

The _Megaera_ rocked again under the mothership's fire as the last of the pilots confirmed their status, and Sam let out a long breath. It was showtime.

* * *

  
The emergency lights flickered as Jonas and the others with him entered a long, narrow hallway that was usually used as a shortcut between two of the main corridors. There were no rooms down this hall, and therefore no quick hiding spots. Its advantage, however, was that it was dark, and Jaffa made a lot of noise.

Truth be told, Jonas was thinking less about their escape and more about Doctor Weir. He didn't care what she'd said. They shouldn't have left her behind. It wasn't going to be long before she was found, and despite the fact that she'd been right, he hated that they'd done it anyway. It was like watching Daniel jump through the glass all over again. He should have stayed.

Silently, in single file, they made their way down the half-mile corridor in darkness. The batteries in Jonas' flashlight were dying, and he wanted to hold on to them for as long as possible, so they made their way blindly. A few minutes passed, and they saw the faint glow of emergency lighting ahead.

They stopped fifty feet from the juncture. "Ford," King whispered, "how far are we from the kitchens?"

"I'm not sure," the young man said. "Less than a mile, though."

"Good," the major replied. "Let's hope they have supplies there. We're going to need water in a hurry."

They waited until they were sure the corridor was clear before running across it to another narrow hall. As they neared the kitchens, Jonas couldn't help but think of Doctor Weir.

They never should have left her behind.

* * *

  
John was not normally the type to take pleasure in taking the lives of others, but by the time he and his squadrons were out of the fighter bay, he was not in the mood for having a conscience. He pushed those thoughts from his mind as his copilot, a Captain Mitchell, read off sensor data.

The death gliders from the Goa'uld mothership had scrambled faster than his people had, and they were outnumbered. John had decided to throw most of his force at them right off the bat, so there was a pretty big chance that there were even more gliders still in the mothership. He could only hope it wouldn't be a problem at this point.

"Red, Gold, Blue, Black, Green Squadrons, listen up," he said, after activating the comm. "This is Red Leader. I have it on good authority that the shields of the Megaera should hold up under the mothership's fire, but it's going to take at least two more minutes for her weapons to fire up. We have to buy her at least that much time."

As the attack began, John could only hope that Sam was right about the shields, or else it was going to be over in a hurry.

The gliders attacked in V formations, and from the back seat, Mitchell fed John targeting data as John piloted the 302 toward the enemy lines. "Red Squadron, this is Red Leader. Form up on me," he said. Then he singled out the central V and began firing.

* * *

  
Solitude was not something Elizabeth particularly objected to, but solitude in this base was nothing short of terrifying. The place was so large that there was no way she was truly alone, and the prospect of being discovered was more frightening than anything she had ever experienced.

The pain in her leg and in her head was getting worse. She'd been injured more badly than this before, but in those cases, she'd always had rapid medical attention. Elizabeth had long since lost track of how long it had been since the ceiling collapsed overhead.

She found a small conference room in which she could sit and rest a while. A single, sickly bulb lit the space, casting a yellow glow in its sphere. The room seemed at ease, shielded from the blast by virtue of its position. Two columns jutted out from one wall, and Elizabeth knew it to be a supporting wall. The strength of those columns and the distance from the gate had saved this room from collapse.

Elizabeth wished she knew what had happened. She and Jonas had put together a fair conjecture on the events, but she didn't know for certain, and the doubt lingering in her mind was slowly driving her mad. At times she thought that they had come up with this scenario in order to devise an explanation which gave them complete freedom from responsibility. But the truth was that God only knew how many of the people under her leadership were dead, and she was absolutely responsible for every last one of them.

There were plenty of ways to blame herself. She hadn't contacted the Tok'ra or the Jaffa about the intelligence Sam had given her. On top of that, all of this could have been prevented if she had been more insistent that Sam divulge information to her at the beginning. She hadn't insisted that Sarah try the Tok'ra memory devices again. She simply hadn't done enough.

She leaned down, stiffly, to inspect the damage to her leg. The blood was matted now, in crackled lines dripping down from the bandaged wound. It was funny in a way. She didn't remember them bandaging her leg, but that must have been what prompted Jonas to stop her from screaming. Her mouth was still a little sore from where he'd clamped his hand. But she remembered the pain. She remembered wanting to scream for John.

It was so strange. She had no idea how long she'd been at the alpha site, but it must have been days. And yet the night at John's house, the night before leaving Earth, was still very fresh in her mind. She remembered the smell of the sweater he'd loaned her, the taste of the wine they drank, and the look in his eyes when they'd nearly kissed.

And how she regretted backing away from him.

In the hallway she heard Jaffa. As they passed by the closed door, she wondered why no one had ever told the Goa'uld about stealth, but decided that it didn't matter, really. At the moment, it was to her benefit that she heard them coming. She kept her gun ready until she could no longer hear them.

When they were gone, she crossed her arms on the table and laid her head down, knowing it was a bad idea. But she was tired, and some part of her could not care any longer.

* * *

  
The worst part about this battle was that it reminded Sam of learning to drive. Her father would sit in the passenger's seat and make her even more nervous than she already was, and now Jack was doing that from behind her, probably without realizing it.

"Three blips coming in at five o'clock, Carter." It was odd, but they'd reverted to their old names in this environment.

She looked at the small radar screen. "Got it, sir," she said. Then, tapping a button to switch over to the main frequency, she added, "This is Red Seven. I have three unfriendlies on my tail."

An unfamiliar voice responded with a faint crackle. "Red Seven, this is Gold Niner. Gold Ten and I are behind you."

Moments later, there were three explosions behind them, and Sam felt the 302 take the light impact of glider debris. "Thanks, Niner," she replied. Then she switched back to the fighter's internal frequency. "Sir, how are the shields?"

"Fine," he said. "They should withstand a hundred impacts like that."

"Good to hear."

Before the conversation had a chance to go further, a glider swooped down in front of them, nearly clipping the 302's nose. Sam banked hard and dove after him. "Hold on," she said. She had designed huge parts of this craft, so she knew exactly what it could take, but she also knew that in a dive like this, the inertial dampeners would only compensate for so much.

Another 302 came close, playing tag with a glider, and Sam turned her fighter over to avoid a collision. By the time she was upright again, she was almost at the treetops. In her earpiece she heard Jack say, "Carter..."

At the last moment possible, she pulled out of the dive, lower than the glider she chased. She and Jack both lurched forward against their restraints. "Targeting enemy glider at twelve o'clock," Jack said, as soon as he had thudded back into the seat. "Ready to fire... now."

Sam squeezed the trigger, and one small missile fired. She pulled up and turned her fighter away, and as soon as she was over the target, the glider exploded.

"Nice shot," Jack said.

"Thanks, sir."

* * *

  
Elizabeth awoke to the sound of explosions somewhere in the distance. She had no idea how long she'd been asleep, but her head hurt a lot and her leg hurt worse.

She wondered what had happened to the others. It had been several hours, maybe even a day, since she had ordered Jonas and the others to leave her behind, and at least two, maybe three or four days since the group at large had split up. Colonel Reynolds had intended to take his group deeper into the base, to try to get to the gate room and send a message to Earth for help. She wondered if they had been successful, or if they were dead already.

As cognizance sharpened, Elizabeth realized that she was very, very thirsty. Captain Derrick had been right — she was going to need water soon. A quick glance around the conference room told her that there was nothing like that here. But then she looked up at a sign by the door, which read "D17."

Level 17, Sector D. The infirmary was on this level, in this sector.

With no small amount of difficulty, she hobbled over to a filing cabinet in one corner of the room. Deep in its recesses she found a map of the sector, and once she was certain of how to get there, she started off for the infirmary as quickly as she could.

She hadn't noticed it as much when the others were with her, but now it was hard to ignore the dozens of bodies en route. The Jaffa had shown no mercy. She had known that since watching them enter the infirmary, but it seemed more disturbing now that she saw the results. The bodies looked oddly peaceful, as though they slept. But the burns from the staff weapons revealed the truth of it.

Her leg was hurting so badly by the time she had walked the few hundred feet to the infirmary that she was in tears. But the sight there made her stop for a moment. Many of the patients were still in their beds. One nurse had apparently flung herself over her patient in an effort to save him. It had not worked.

Sickened by it, Elizabeth leaned over and vomited into an open container, though she had not eaten in a long time. For a while she couldn't move, but at last she forced herself through the carnage to a small refrigerator along the far wall. In it were bottles of water, and she drank one of them completely before she realized that the water was cold. Of all the places in the base, this was one of the few for which emergency power was not limited.

She was halfway through a second bottle when she decided that while she was here, she might as well do something to change the dressing on her leg, such as it was. She didn't know what the thing wrapped around her leg had originally been, but it was now blood-soaked and in need of replacement. After some searching, she found what she needed and began to gingerly redress the wound. The gash was deep, but Elizabeth counted herself lucky that she hadn't broken her leg. That would have made things much, much worse than they already were.

But then, she mused, there was a point when the difference between worse and much worse didn't mean a whole lot. The end result was very likely to be the same.

* * *

  
John had a habit of keeping track of his kills in his head, even though he knew there was some kind of fancy system in the 302 which would count for him. When he reached seventeen, he found himself high enough above the fray to look down over the battle and see how it was going.

The second (and hopefully last) wave of death gliders had already launched, but in their superior craft, the Tau'ri were making quick and relatively easy work of them. "Colonel?" asked his copilot. "What are you doing?"

"Just taking a look around, Mitchell," John replied, circling about and descending.

"All due respect, sir, but that's my job."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Sir, did you know these birds have Minesweeper in their computers?"

"Mitchell, give me a damn target."

"Yes, sir."

The captain got to work at targeting a glider giving chase to a 302 with his squadron's colors. As he got closer, he saw that it was Seven. "Red Seven, this is Red Leader. I have your six."

Red Seven lurched into a nose dive, so the glider and John followed. "Red Leader, this is Red Seven," said Jack. "I'd prefer it if you'd get his six."

"I'm on it."

Carter pulled her fighter out of its steep descent. The glider pulled up slightly lower, so John came down beneath the other 302 as well. "Mitchell, I could triangulate this in my head faster," he said.

"You have a lock, sir," Mitchell replied.

John wasted no time, mashing down the trigger with his thumb and blowing the glider out of the sky. He dove to avoid the debris field and saw Carter circling above him. "Red Leader, pull up," she said, her voice frantic. "Repeat, pull up. You have a glider heading straight for you."

"Negative, Red Seven," he replied. "Can't pull up into the debris field. Beginning evasive maneuvers."

Then John leveled out and suddenly saw there was no time for evasion. The glider was a hundred yards away and closing in. "Mitchell, eject. Repeat, eject," he said, half a second before pushing the eject button himself. The canopy blew off, and a moment later the world went white.

* * *


	14. Chapter 14

  
"Negative, Red Leader, there's no time!" Sam yelled into the microphone. But it was too late. Before the last of her words was out of her mouth, the glider had impacted the 302, and both exploded.

"Red Leader, this is Red Seven. Do you read?"

A single chute blossomed above the explosion.

Sam took a deep breath. "This is Red Seven. Red Leader, do you copy?"

There was no answer.

Sam started to circle around the falling debris. "Carter," Jack said, "Carter, get your head in the game."

"Sir," she began.

"Carter," he interrupted. "Nothing you can do."

"Sir, one of them is–" Her throat constricted. She couldn't bring herself to say that one of them was dead for sure. "Sheppard, Mitchell, this is Red Seven."

"Sam, get back in the game," Jack replied. "We've got incoming."

She nodded, even though she knew he was looking at screens and couldn't see it. "Give me numbers."

* * *

  
The white of the explosion was quickly replaced by the black of unconsciousness, and John Sheppard had no idea how long it was before that was replaced by the green of the forest.

For a moment he wasn't cogent enough to think beyond terms of green. After a while things solidified into tree branches and needles, and finally he realized what a precarious position he was in. He'd ejected above the forest, and his parachute was tangled up in the canopy.

"Mitchell!" he yelled. "Damn it. Mitchell!"

He didn't get an answer, even when he called out three or four more times. He tried to turn around a few times, but in the middle of it he managed to get the chute even more tied up. Then he realized, with no small amount of horror, that he was _suspended_ from the treetops.

He tried to unstrap himself from the ejection seat, but it turned out the clasp was jammed. Or maybe his fingers just weren't working right anymore. Whatever the problem, John knew that being stuck in the trees wasn't helping matters any, so he managed, with a bit of difficulty, to get his knife out and cut himself free of the harness.

Of course, getting down was going to be another matter.

In World War II, pilots were given lengths of rope for just this kind of problem. Pilots in the Pacific theatre of the same war were given shark repellant. Pilots of the F-302, however, weren't given anything like that, and John was wondering where he should direct his letter of complaint. He'd probably just whine to Elizabeth once he figured out how to get down and get home.

Elizabeth. Right. He'd talked Dixon into this so he could get Elizabeth and the others home.

Wishing more than anything else that he had better gloves, John started climbing down.

* * *

  
In the kitchen, Jonas and the others began stocking up on water and food. Initially they had planned to get it and escape immediately, but by the time they were actually there, they were all so tired that they decided to rest there for a few hours. This time Jonas kept the first watch, and he was so agitated that after his shift was over, he still couldn't sleep.

The tunnel Ford had known about had partially collapsed by the time they got there, and in the back of his mind, Jonas wondered how Doctor Weir would have fared in this. There were long sections through which they had to crawl, and it was the dirtiest place he'd seen in a long time.

But fortunately, its entrance was hidden away behind a large refrigerator, so it made for a good escape route. Jaffa were unlikely to find it. So they climbed upward through it, and when they found the daylight beyond, Jonas finally felt like he could breathe again.

It was starting to rain on the surface, but through breaks in the cloud cover he saw a familiar outline. "Guys," he said, "looks like we're not the only ones here."

He pointed to the Goa'uld mothership hovering nearby. "Wow," Major King said. "Never thought I'd see one of those again."

"I know," said Derrick. "Nobody–"

"Wait a minute," said Ford. "Over there."

They saw something impact the mothership, and a few seconds later the explosion rolled over them like thunder. Jonas looked at what Ford was pointing at, and through the cirrus clouds he could see the silhouette of a BC-303.

"The cavalry's here," said the lieutenant. "Reynolds must have gotten through."

"I did," said a voice behind them, "but they were already on their way."

Jonas spun around, his P-90 ready, but he lowered his weapon again when he saw a bedraggled Colonel Reynolds step out from behind a cluster of trees. There were two men with him – two fewer than he had left with. "You got to the gate room?" Major King asked.

Reynolds nodded. "It's a disaster," he replied. "I'm surprised any Jaffa could get in or out of it. But when the gate shut down for a second, we managed to dial Earth."

"What happened?" Jonas asked.

"I got to speak with Colonel Dixon for about a minute," he said. "We were under fire already by that point. I told him what had happened, and he told me that Colonel Sheppard had left with the _Megaera_ about a day earlier." He pointed to the ship above. "Looks like they got here just in time."

"How is that possible?" Ford asked. "It should have taken them two or three weeks to get here."

"I didn't get to ask that," Reynolds said. "We had to shut the gate down and get out of there." He looked around. "Where's Doctor Weir?"

Jonas closed his eyes, and he was grateful when King answered. "She was injured when a ceiling collapsed," the major said. "She ordered us to leave her behind."

Reynolds swore under his breath. "We've got a problem, then," he said.

Jonas frowned. "The _Megaera_ 's here. Couldn't we get those personnel in to search the base?" he asked.

"Yeah, but we set the self-destruct," the colonel replied, "and it's not safe enough to send a search party in."

"How long does she have to get out?" Ford asked.

Reynolds looked around the group. "Five hours."

* * *

  
The last of the branches in John's particular tree was a good twenty feet above the ground. Without proper climbing gear, there was no way he was going to be able to get down the trunk of the tree without seriously hurting himself. So much for the sane way. So he climbed out onto the lowest branch, thought of a book he'd read in high school, and dropped to the rain-softened ground with a particularly graceless thud.

He groaned and lay there for a minute, trying to ignore a sharp pain in his side. After a little bit, the pain dulled, and John determined that he hadn't broken anything important, either in the explosion or in the fall. Then he looked around. There weren't any tracks in the area, which meant he was probably a good distance from the base. But the thick mud meant that his tracks were going to be pretty visible to any patrols.

John turned around one last time as the sun broke through the heavy clouds above. Through the trees the sunlight filtered, and as he pulled his helmet off and ran his hand through his hair, he saw something glint in the distance. It was the 302 hangar.

There were no 302s actually in the hangar, as the pilots of the alpha site had taken off with the _Daedalus_ three weeks earlier for training exercises. But there was something there John could use.

Ignoring soreness and stiffness, he took off running.

* * *

  
"Red, Gold, Black, Green, and Blue Squadrons, this is _Megaera_. Return to _Megaera_ immediately. We are commencing fire on the mothership."

Sam was among the closest to the mothership when the announcement came. "Sir," she said to Jack, "what's the body count?"

"Twenty-five of our guys shot down," Jack read. "One chute unaccounted for. You had eighteen kills. Nice job."

"Thanks," she replied. She still wanted to check out the area where either Sheppard or Mitchell had ejected, but there wasn't enough time.

"Carter, flipping your screen over to radar," he said suddenly. "We've got an unknown incoming."

Sam glanced down at the screen before hailing the 303. " _Megaera_ ," she said, "this is Red Seven. I'm picking up an unknown craft about a klick to your southwest."

"Red Seven, this is _Megaera_. We copy." There was a pause. "Attempt to identify the craft, but do not put yourself at unnecessary risk."

"Copy that. Red Seven out."

While the other 302s entered the fighter bays, Sam piloted hers beneath the Megaera as the ship began firing on the mothership. As they drew closer, she frowned. "Carter," Jack asked, "have you ever seen a death glider that looks like that?"

"No, sir, I haven't," Sam replied, "but I think that may be the X-304."

"Any way to find out?"

"I have a hunch."

She flipped over to the squadron's frequency. "This is Red Seven. Red Leader, do you copy?"

There was a long silence, and Sam repeated, "Red Leader, do you copy?"

"Red Seven, this is Red Leader," came John Sheppard's voice. "Sorry about the delay. Took me a minute to figure out the communications system in this thing."

"Good to hear you, Colonel," Sam said, a small smile on her face.

"What, you don't want to verify who it is?"

"What's your ex-girlfriend's name?"

"Claire."

"Identification verified." She switched to a main frequency again. " _Megaera_ , this is Red Seven, over."

"Red Seven, this is _Megaera_ ," said the technician. "Have you determined the identity of the craft?"

"Affirmative," she replied. "Colonel John Sheppard in the X-304."

"Prepare to dock in Bay 1."

* * *

  
Once John had set his bird down in the landing bay, he was surrounded by a crowd of pilots, all staring at the new craft he'd acquired. Sam was close to the ladder as he descended, and she asked, "How does it handle?"

"Prettiest thing you'll ever fly," he said. "It's two steps away from reading your mind."

Jack started to ask something, but his question was drowned out when the ship's intercom buzzed loudly. "Colonels Sheppard, Carter, and O'Neill, report to the bridge."

The three of them pushed through the crowd and hurried to the bridge, where Colonel Pendergast was waiting for them. "Colonel Pendergast," Jack said, "what do you need?"

"We've intercepted a message from the surface," he replied, "but I think we're going to need Colonel Carter's help to decrypt it."

He gestured to the lieutenant seated on his left, and the young man pulled up a data screen. "All we're getting is gibberish," the ship's commander said. "Any ideas, Colonel?"

Sam stepped forward, her hands on her hips as she watched the screen. "The frequency's been modulated," she said. "Try doubling it."

As they did so, the ship rocked again under the mothership's fire. John grabbed the back of a nearby chair as Pendergast gave orders to return fire and divert more power to the shields. Sam, meanwhile, seemed unfazed. "Double it again," she ordered. Then suddenly the static and gibberish turned into a steady beeping and a scroll of information on the screen.

"It's a locator beacon, transmitting an SOS," Sam replied. "It's one of ours."

"Or one of theirs with one of ours," Jack suggested.

Sam shook her head. "Doesn't work that way," she said. "Those beacons are like the GDOs. Anyone can transmit, but only the owner knows the specific code to transmit." She nodded at the screen. "Run the code through the database of signals."

A moment later, the lieutenant said, "It's Jonas Quinn, ma'am."

John suddenly felt flooded by relief. If Jonas had survived, it was possible that others had too.

"They're out of radio range," said the lieutenant. "Colonel Pendergast, how should we proceed?"

The older man looked at the three other colonels in the room. "What do you think?"

Jack gestured in the general direction of the mothership. "That thing's going to be putting down ground troops before long," he said. "They'll be looking for any survivors."

"But we can't pull the _Megaera_ toward the base," Sam added. "If they find out we have a beacon, they'll just send their troops."

"We need a diversion," said Jack.

"How big?" John asked.

"Like blowing-up-a-sun big."

Sam looked pensive for a moment. "We could blow up the mothership."

The _Megaera_ shook slightly. "We're working on that," Pendergast replied.

"No, I mean that someone can get in there and blow it up," she clarified. "It's not the best idea, but... Well, it's what I've got."

"How many degrees do you have?" John asked.

"Hey, I'm a theoretical astrophysicist, not a master tactician."

"Is 'theoretical astrophysicist' code for 'insane'?"

Sam hedged. "Not always."

"How would this work?" Pendergast asked.

"Well," said Jack, "when motherships send Jaffa down to the surface, they usually leave someone at the ring site who can, you know, beam them up again."

"Well, this has to be the craziest idea I've ever heard," said Pendergast. "But then, you three are known for that kind of thing. So that leaves one thing."

"What?" John asked.

"Which of you is going to do this?"

* * *


	15. Chapter 15

  
Because the pilots had just gotten in from the skirmish and most of the ground troops were helping with system maintenance, it took a while for the team going down to the planet to assemble. Under the cloud cover over which the _Megaera_ had settled, it was growing quite dark. Two groups ringed down to the surface, nine personnel to accompany John to Jonas, and Sam and Jack, who were to head to the mothership's ring site once they were out of the clearing in which they arrived. So they moved quickly into the forest, but it wasn't long before they saw movement amid the trees.

John held up his hand, and behind them Sam and the others halted. The movement stopped a moment later, but then someone stepped out. "Jonas?" Sam called.

Jack and John both gave her a dirty look, but the figure stopped within view. "Colonel Carter," said Jonas.

More appeared from behind the trees, dirty and tired. "Quinn, what happened?" John asked, leading his group forward.

"Someone sent an explosive in through the gate," Jonas replied. "I think most of the personnel were killed in the blast."

Sam stepped up to John's side and looked up at him. He was barely containing his concern, his expression strained. But Colonel Reynolds joined them and spoke first. "We set the self-destruct in the base," he said. "There isn't a countdown, but it should go off in about two and a half hours."

"How many people are left in there?" Jack asked.

"We have no idea," Reynolds responded, "and no way of knowing."

"At least one," Jonas said, quietly.

Sam froze. "What do you mean?"

Jonas and Reynolds exchanged a look, and then the Kelownan replied, "We left Doctor Weir behind."

A stunned silence settled over the group. Sam looked over at Jack, who in turn was watching Sheppard closely. And for the moment, it seemed he had good cause. The man's shocked look was quickly turning to anger. "You did _what_?" he asked, his voice low.

Jonas met the man's gaze without flinching. "We left her behind. She was injured, and she ordered us to leave her."

For a moment all was quiet, and then suddenly John punched Jonas, sending him reeling. Jack grabbed the younger man and held him back, while Jonas staggered back and Sam rushed to help him. "What the hell were you thinking, Quinn?" John yelled.

"She ordered us!" Jonas cried, as Sam helped him back up. He rubbed at his jaw. "Do you think we wanted to leave her?"

John struggled against Jack's restraint. "I don't give a damn what she ordered you. You do not leave someone behind!"

"Jonas," Jack said, one arm still hooked through John's and the other hand holding his shoulder, "how bad was she hurt?"

"Her leg," said Jonas. "The ceiling collapsed on us at one point and she was hurt pretty badly. She couldn't walk very well. Then she told us we weren't going to get out alive if we had to help her out too."

Sam looked up at John, who was looking very dangerous now, his eyes dark. "Did you know about the self-destruct?" she asked.

"No," Jonas replied. "We didn't know about that until we got up here. And Colonel Reynolds didn't know about her until he found us."

"We left her near the infirmary on Level 17," said a young Marine lieutenant behind them. "She's not stupid. I bet she went there to hide. There'd be water in there, at least."

"How do you know the Jaffa wouldn't check the infirmary?" Sam asked.

"The Jaffa already killed everyone who was in there, ma'am."

It was a sickening thought, but Sam forced herself to focus. "Is there any safe way into the base?"

A woman Sam didn't recognize spoke up. "Our group came out through the ventilation shafts," she said. "We were in that sector when we found the escape."

John finally looked away from Jonas. "Where's the exit?"

"Not far from here," the woman replied. She pointed to her left. "There's a hatch near the edge of the tree line about half a mile that way."

Slowly, Jack released Sheppard. Jonas took an automatic step back. But John ignored him and began to walk through the parting crowd.

"Colonel Sheppard!" Reynolds yelled. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Getting Elizabeth out of there," Sheppard called back.

Reynolds looked like he was about to call him back, but Jack stopped him. "Don't," he said. "If she dies, he'll never forgive himself."

The other man said nothing, so Jack looked at Sam. "Come on, Carter," he said. "Time to blow up a mothership."

* * *

  
If someone tried to order John back and prevent him from saving her, he didn't hear. It wouldn't have stopped him anyway. He knew that his duty as a human being outranked his duty as an officer. Leaving someone behind was not an option.

As he made his way to the entrance that had been pointed out to him, he briefly wondered if his reaction would have been that strong had it been anyone but Elizabeth in the base. Hitting Jonas hadn't been the smartest thing to do, but all he could think about was how they'd left her alone and wounded. Of all the idiotic things they could have done, that was the worst.

He didn't care that Elizabeth had ordered them to leave her. If he got them both out of this alive, he was going to have to talk to her about that. Of course, if he had any say in it, chain of command notwithstanding, he was never letting her off-world again.

At the hatch he paused. When had he developed feelings this strong for her? They'd been good friends almost since they met, and they respected each other as leaders in their own ways, but since when had she become so important to him that he'd punch a man who'd served with him, a man who had only done what she told him to do?

He glanced at his watch. He had two hours and fifteen minutes, which meant that he wanted to have her out in an hour and a half. There was no way of knowing how accurate Colonel Reynolds' estimate had been, and there was no way John was taking his chances with Elizabeth's life.

* * *

  
The people who had come with John to the surface escorted the base's survivors back to the ring site while Sam and Jack split off, heading to the mothership. They were so laden with weaponry that Sam was a little surprised that Jack had been able to grab Sheppard well enough to restrain him. They both had enough C-4 to blow up several strategic sites in Libya, Iraq, and North Korea.

Two miles from the point where they'd left the others, they saw three Jaffa nearby, patrolling a small clearing. "I don't think they've seen much action," Jack said, looking through his binoculars. "Sloppy guarding there."

With practiced efficiency they picked off the three guards. The Jaffa never saw it coming.

Quickly they ran up and found the one with the remote. "Sir, how do we know if the ring room is guarded?" Sam asked.

"Carter," said Jack, "do they ever guard ring rooms?"

He pushed the button, and with a flash of light and a metallic ring they were aboard the mothership. The room was deserted, as Jack had predicted. "See?" he said. "Nothing to worry about."

"Well, let's find this thing's chink in the armor," she replied.

They slipped through the door and down the corridors, avoiding Jaffa as they went.

* * *

  
John didn't know the alpha site very well. Mostly he had been there for training, flying the F-302, running wilderness survival exercises with new recruits, and taking his team there when Earth's gate was busy. His team had been one of the few chosen as an Earth-based team. It had been an honor when Elizabeth had asked him to stay there instead of heading out to the off-world base.

However, of all the places he did know well on the base, the Level 17 infirmary was one of them. His people tended to be somewhat more accident-prone, it seemed, and injuries and illnesses which weren't life-threatening were filtered through that infirmary, instead of the one on Level 30, which handled surgery and major cases. So John was a little more able to navigate the ventilation system than he might have thought.

It was disgusting up there, filled with dust and things that looked a bit like dead rats. The bright side was that the ducts periodically opened up to vents, through which John could see what was going on beneath. It wasn't too long before he found the right corridor for the infirmary. But there was a group of Jaffa standing right in the middle of the hall.

As quietly as he could, he crawled over them to the next junction in the ducts, where the hallway joined another. He opened the vent, pulled the pin from a grenade, and threw it at them.

A few seconds later, it detonated.

John waited until the smoke cleared, and he stuck his head down through the vent to take a look. There was no movement from the Jaffa, so he dropped down from his hiding place. When he reached them, they were all dead.

He finally took a look around at his surroundings. The infirmary wasn't far away, so he took off running. There were bodies everywhere, of Jaffa and human alike, but mostly human. Then he remembered what that Marine had said — that they knew the Jaffa had killed everyone in the infirmary. In a way, John almost hoped that Elizabeth wasn't hiding there.

The stench of death grew stronger as he reached the place. The entrance was almost entirely blocked by bodies and equipment. It was a horrifying sight. The very first person he saw was Doctor Chavez, a woman who'd stitched him up on several occasions.

John forced himself to look away from her to the others in the room. Patients still lay on beds, eyes wide with horror. But then, at the far end of the room, John saw the top of someone's head, with curly brown hair, and hope arose.

* * *

  
Jack and Sam were pressed up against a wall, watching two Jaffa march past them as they made their way to something that might be useful in at least disabling this ship. Once they were out of earshot, Jack whispered, "Can't we find a computer and look something up?"

Sam frowned at him. "Jack, do you know how much information is in a mothership's computers?"

He shrugged. "You could Google it."

She blinked several times. "Did you just say I could Google it?"

"Yeah, run a search for something."

"Right, and have you been studying Goa'uld since you retired?"

"Daniel taught me how to say 'I am the great and powerful Oz.'"

"Don't think that's going to do a lot of good."

Around that time the Jaffa rounded a corner and were out of sight, so Sam and Jack slipped out of their hiding place. "Think we're showing up on sensors?" Jack asked.

"To be honest, sir," Sam replied, "they're deploying troops. I don't think they're going to be paying much attention."

"Point." They came to a doorway, and Jack asked, "What do you think is in there?"

"I have no idea," she said. "But half the time it seems like we wander through these things till we find a door we like anyway."

He stood still for a minute. "Yeah, I like this door."

Sam shrugged and got to work on the lock. It didn't take long to override, and within minutes they were inside.

There was little of note in the room, but it did at least allow them to talk above a whisper. "Jack," Sam began, "do we have any idea how to blow up a mothership?"

"We've blown up motherships before."

"Yeah, but usually it's involved other ships."

Jack thought for a moment. "What about the time after Kinsey tried to shut us down? How'd we blow up that one?"

"We attached C-4 to some death gliders and caused a chain reaction that blew it up."

"And why wouldn't that work now?"

"Those gliders hadn't been flown recently," she replied. "These gliders don't have as much fuel in them to feed the explosion."

"Oh." He glanced around. "What is this place?"

"I don't know," Sam replied, opening a small cabinet door. It revealed a rack of power crystals. "I know this configuration," she said, squatting down in front of it. "This is the power configuration for their weapons."

"Can you unplug a few of them?" Jack asked.

"I can give you one better than that," she replied. "I can cause a catastrophic overload in the system that would cause the weapons to backfire, essentially."

"And how do we do that?"

"C-4."

But before she could do anything, she heard two thuds, and she turned to see Jack on the ground behind her. She looked up. There in the doorway was a Jaffa she'd known relatively well in her reality. He looked surprised to see her, but soon he smiled.

"Well, it seems I didn't kill you quite as thoroughly as I thought," said Herak, first prime of Anubis.

* * *

  
Elizabeth had lost track of how long she'd been huddled in the infirmary, hiding amid the bodies and praying that no one would hear her breathing. There wasn't much left that she could do. She wanted to cry, but it would have made too much noise. As it was, it was only a matter of time before someone found her.

She was having a hard time feeling her toes, now that she was still. And she was beginning to regret that she'd required first aid training for everyone under her command, but never bothered with it herself. But she was a diplomat, a negotiator. The only kinds of wounds she was expected to treat were wounds of ego and pride, and those didn't require tourniquets.

There was a loud explosion not far away, and the ground shook. Near Elizabeth a box came crashing to the floor, and she tried to pull herself into a tighter ball. Her injured leg protested, and she began to shake. She'd never been one to give much thought to how she was going to die, but dying alone or at the end of a staff weapon had never occurred to her. Now it looked inevitable.

Then suddenly she heard footsteps enter the room. They were soft, not like the sounds of Jaffa marching past – they were the sound of stealth. The person who belonged to the sound was looking for something. Elizabeth was sure of it.

Hot tears started to spill down her cheeks. She couldn't help it, though she desperately wanted to. She knew she had never been one to weep silently, and when the first soft sob escaped her throat, she hated herself. She'd just doomed herself, and as more choking sobs came, she despised herself more and more. But she couldn't stop.

The footsteps grew louder, drawing ever nearer, until they stopped very close to her. Elizabeth tried to make herself smaller, but it just wasn't working. Then the person stepped into her peripheral vision, and she let out another sob, this time louder than before. It didn't matter anymore.

"Elizabeth," said the intruder. His voice was too gentle. "Elizabeth, it's me."

She couldn't bring herself to look death in the face, but the man knelt beside her, grabbed her, and made her look. "Elizabeth," he repeated. She started thrashing at him, trying to push him away, but he wouldn't let her. Finally he put hands on her face, too gently, and whispered, "Elizabeth, it's me. It's John."

"John?" she said, her voice far too high as she blinked back tears. Then she saw him as he cradled her face. It was him, a look of deep concern in his eyes. "John, how did you – what are you –"

"Shh," he said. "It doesn't matter." Then, with a tenderness she didn't expect, he wrapped his arms around her and held her. She started crying again, this time burying her sobs in his chest. He was so warm.

He rested his head against hers, and dimly she realized that he was watching the door. With one hand she clutched his shirt, and her other hand drifted up into his thick, dark hair. Elizabeth knew that her nose was running and that it was getting all over his shirt, but she just couldn't bring herself to care. This might yet be the day of her death, but at least she wouldn't die alone.

At least John was with her.

John, who was so very, very warm.

Her crying had ceased, so she eased herself out of his arms, wiping her face with the sleeves of the green coat she still wore. When she lowered her hands and looked at him once again, she saw a strange mix of overt concern and buried longing in his eyes. "John, please," she whispered, though she didn't know why she was begging.

Wordlessly he told her. He took off his gloves, tattered and worn, and looked at his hands uncertainly. Then he touched her face, as though fearing she was not there. When he kissed her, she had already closed her eyes in anticipation.

He kissed her so lightly that Elizabeth thought he might actually be afraid of what he was doing. She wondered if this was any more than the product of her imagination now that she was faced with death, but there were too many things she knew she never would have imagined. She would not have imagined him this gentle, nor this unsure.

When he drew away, the longing she'd seen was buried no more. His green eyes were piercing, and so openly filled with need that Elizabeth was in no way surprised when John kissed her again. This time there was neither lightness nor uncertainty in his touch. It was consumed instead with desire and desperation. He touched her cheeks, and she could feel raised scratches on his hands, which must have happened when his gloves had gotten torn up. His perennial five o'clock shadow was closer to a full beard now, and Elizabeth wondered vaguely at how long he'd been so distracted that he hadn't shaved.

Somewhere along the way, she began to cry again. Her leg was hurting so badly, and she was finding it hard to breathe. John pulled away and wiped her face. "Elizabeth," he said, "can you walk?"

A glance at his face told her that he was back to business. "Not very well," she replied.

"Well, I hate to push this," he said, "but we've got a problem."

"What kind of problem?"

"They set the self-destruct."

Her eyes grew wide, and she suddenly felt very cold. "How long?"

"An hour and a half, tops," he said. "Come on. We have to hurry."

"How are we going to get out?" she asked as John stood and hurried over the bodies to search through cabinets.

"Same way I got in," he said. "We can get through the ducts to the ladder pretty easily. Getting up to the surface won't be easy, but we'll figure something out."

He returned to her with something that looked like an epipen. "John," she began, "there's no way–"

He touched his fingers to her lips. "Don't," he said. "I'm not leaving you."

Slowly she nodded. She knew very well that she was his commander and that she could order him as she had Jonas, but he would never follow such an order. There was no reason to contest him in this. "What's that?" she asked, nodding at the thing in his hand.

"Morphine," he said. "Hopefully it'll deaden the pain enough that you can get out of here."

She looked away as he injected it. Then John stood and helped her up. "Come on," he said, guiding her over to a vent in the room, "let's go home."

* * *


	16. Chapter 16

  
Sam still had her sidearm, but her P-90 was sitting on the ground just behind her. Herak took his staff weapon and nudged it aside. "You will not be needing that," he said.

"You should have finished me off when you had the chance," she said, trying to bluff her way into bravado until Jack woke up. "What stopped you?"

"I did not expect you to survive," he replied. "You were so broken that the smallest pebble should have finished you."

When Sam didn't answer, Herak smiled and set his staff weapon aside. "You fear me still," he said, pulling a long, narrow stick resembling a cattle prod from within his armor. She swallowed hard. It had been a long time since she'd seen a Goa'uld fire stick, let alone been on the receiving end of one.

Herak wasted no more time in empty threats. Before Sam could even attempt to get off her knees, he had stepped over Jack and thrust the torture device to her chest. She screamed as her consciousness exploded into white, searing pain. Every nerve in her body was telling her how much she would rather die than go through this again.

The light stopped abruptly, though the pain only dulled. Sam sank down, her back hunched. "You see?" said Herak, smiling. "This time I will not make the mistake of not finishing you off."

In the moment before he prodded her again with the fire stick, she looked down and saw motion. Jack was awake.

* * *

  
Getting Elizabeth up into the vent system was about as difficult as John had expected it to be, but since they actually managed it, it gave him hope for getting her up the ladder to the surface when they reached the end of the vents. As they crawled through in single file, the morphine must have kicked in, because her little pained gasps eventually ceased. That made John feel immensely better, because he hated that he hadn't found another way out that would have hurt her less.

Whenever they passed over a vent that gave them light, John would turn around to look at her. Her hair hung limply and her face was dripping with sweat. He suspected that only the adrenaline was keeping the usual side effects of morphine at bay. As long as she had to focus on moving, hopefully she wouldn't start getting hysterical or loopy.

Of course, checking on her so often had an unwanted side effect for him, though it was not entirely unpleasant. Kissing Elizabeth had not been part of the plan for this rescue, but when he was finally faced with her, with knowing she was alive and that he could still save her, there was no other response. He had wasted time, but comforted them both. At this point, he was ready to think it had been the lesser of two evils.

And oh, he'd enjoyed it. She had been so very afraid when he'd appeared, but after that first brief embrace, courage had arisen in her eyes. Elizabeth Weir was a woman of peace, but she was not a coward, and neither was she weak. No coward would have ordered others to leave her behind when it meant certain death, and no weakling could have survived alone as long as she had. There was so much beauty to this woman, and it was hardly surprising that John had fallen for her so hard.

Annoyed at himself, he shook his head. This was hardly the time to be waxing poetic. Still, every few feet he turned to look at her. In a strange way he would never understand, it was comforting to know she was still right there.

* * *

  
Within a second Sam was screaming again, but this time there was something different. There was a voice, maybe from distant memory, or maybe it was really there. Herak had stopped the torture again before Sam processed what she'd heard.

" _The answer is right in front of you_ ," Daniel had said.

"Jack," she breathed.

"What did you say?" Herak demanded.

"Nothing," said Sam, breathing heavily. "What do you want from me?"

"You thwarted my master's plans," the Jaffa replied. "You infiltrated his base and learned of his plans to wipe out the Tau'ri. No doubt that his how your pitiful ship arrived here so quickly."

She just had to stall long enough for Jack to shoot Herak before he tortured her to death, but Sam was somewhat horrified to learn more of how her alternate self had been killed. "There were others with me," she said. "How did you know they wouldn't figure it out?"

"The base was not one of Goa'uld design," he replied. "My god has mastery of the technology of an ancient race far more advanced than yours. You would not have imagined it to be a Goa'uld base in ten thousand years."

So Anubis had been hiding his movements in Ancient sites. It was pretty ingenious. "You should have killed me," Sam said.

"A regrettable mistake, one which I will not make again."

He began the torture again, but this time it had barely begun before Sam heard a blast. The fire stick fell, and before she could see, Herak fell over onto her.

The body was shoved away, and Jack knelt before her, setting aside the staff weapon in his hand. "Sam, are you all right?"

"I'll be fine," she said. "Did you hear him?"

"Yeah." He grabbed some C-4 out of a vest pocket and handed it to her. "Let's get to work."

* * *

  
_...focus, focus, focus..._

The morphine hadn't been enough, but Elizabeth wasn't about to let John know that. She bit her tongue every time she wanted to cry out in pain, and now she tasted blood in her mouth. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to crawl, and those were the only things keeping her alive right now.

The morphine hadn't been enough.

John was doing all he could, and Elizabeth was trying not to make any sounds on his account. She knew that if she let him know that she was hurting, he would probably do something stupid, though she couldn't imagine what. She had to keep focused. At all costs, she had to keep focused.

_...focus, can't stop, have to breathe..._

John had come for her. All through the ordeal she had thought that she would never see him again, that his final memory of her would be of her stepping through the gate, never to be seen again.

_...he's here, can't breathe, have to stop..._

John had turned around before she realized that she wasn't moving anymore. "Elizabeth," he said, urgency penetrating her haze of pain like a steady stream of water, eroding away resistance. "Elizabeth, we can't stop."

Something dripped from her nose, and she had a dim suspicion that it was blood. "Hurts," she managed, wondering when she'd started crying.

"I know," he said. Was it hurting him too? "I'm sorry, Elizabeth, but we have to move or we're dead."

She started coughing, and it was as if someone were stabbing her in the chest. When she collapsed to the floor, she decided that it had definitely been blood.

His hand started shaking her. "Elizabeth!" His voice was a tidal wave now, crashing over her and burying her. "Elizabeth, you can't die on me."

"Shouldn't have come."

"Elizabeth, please."

In the darkness he groped, and his hand found hers. He was so warm.

"You're stronger than the people who did this," he said. "You're stronger than me. Elizabeth. _Please_."

Deep in the recesses of her mind was a memory, a memory of Jonas' anguish as he turned and left her alone. John was talking about that. He had to be.

Summoning up the will to keep going, to let him save her, to live, she pushed herself up.

_...focus, can't stop, have to breathe..._

* * *

  
Every sound was making Jack jump. It was clear to Sam that he had been out of the game for a while. Unfortunately, his twitching all over the place was making _her_ nervous, so she said, "Jack, why don't you watch the exit while I do this?"

He nodded and headed to the door, where he seemed to relax a little. Sam set to work with the crystals. This would be tricky, as it not only involved high amounts of explosives, but also required switching some crystals around, an operation not unlike overclocking a computer's memory. The only catch was that she would have to do it without alerting anyone that the weapons were being tampered with.

Or blowing herself up. But that kind of went without saying.

"Switch the red and blue," she said. "Move the orange to the center, and... take out the green."

"What?" Jack asked from the door.

"Never mind," Sam replied. "Just have to get the C-4 in here to augment the overload."

"Meaning..."

"It'll make the explosion bigger."

"Oh. Right."

Within a minute she had the C-4 set. "Done," she said. "We've got five minutes."

"And here I thought we'd be in a hurry."

* * *

  
At the end of the line, John opened a vent, looked down into the corridor, and dropped himself down from the duct. His feet hit the floor with a painful thud, but he ignored his body's achy protest, especially the sharp jabs in his sides, and looked back up. Elizabeth was looking down at him. "How do I get down?" she asked.

"Feet first," he replied. "I'll help you."

She looked uncertain, but nodded anyway. A few seconds later she had crawled over the opening. John backed up as one foot descended. "Try not to kick me in the face," he added.

"Damn."

It took her a lot longer, if for no other reason than the fact that her arms weren't nearly as strong as his, and she was far more wary of hitting the ground than he had been. As soon as he could reach some part of her above the bloody mess on her leg, he kept his hands on her as a kind of reassurance that he wasn't going to let her fall. Slowly she emerged, and when he had his hands on her waist, he said, "Elizabeth, let go. I'm going to lower you down."

She looked down at him, eyes wide, but nodded anyway. In a moment of supreme trust, she let go, letting John take all of her weight. The pain in his sides returned with a vengeance, and he started to let her down a little faster than he had intended. Her hands dropped to his shoulders to stop herself, and by the time either of them could move again, her breathing was shaky. Slowly, John lowered her to the floor, never breaking eye contact with her. There was so much blood and dirt on her face.

"How well do you think you can walk?" he asked.

"I can try," Elizabeth replied. "How much time do we have?"

"Enough."

He wrapped his arm around her waist, and she rested her hand on his shoulder. They were barely fifty feet from the door to the ladder John had descended, but every step for her was torture. By the time they reached it, she was openly sobbing. The ladder was going to be a nightmare.

"Elizabeth," he said, opening the door, "you can do this. I'm right here."

Tears still streaming down her face, she nodded and gripped his shoulder a little tighter.

They just had to get up the ladder. Just a little more, and they'd be safe. John kept telling himself that over and over, with every step. Elizabeth was doing the best she could, but in large part he was carrying her up. For both of them, it was hell.

Halfway up, she wasn't crying anymore, but John suspected that was because she'd cried her tear ducts dry. Her nose was still running, and she still made a little pained sound with every rung.

It didn't help that he ached all over too. He hadn't really slept in days, he'd been shot out of the sky, he'd fallen from a tree, and he'd been crawling around in ducts for hours. It was a wonder he was still conscious, let alone able to support Elizabeth. But there he didn't have a choice.

He looked up. Just a few feet more.

"John," Elizabeth said, with some difficulty, "you know you shouldn't have come."

He pulled them up to the next rung with a soft grunt. "You knew I wouldn't let you die."

Another rung, and another. At last, they were at the hatch.

With one hand he released the lock and shoved the door open. Water suddenly poured down on them. It was raining, like it had that day when he'd come to test the X-304. "Can you hold yourself up here?" he asked. She nodded, so he said. "I'm climbing out, and then I'm going to pull you up."

As quickly as he could, he climbed out into the deluge. He looked back down and saw that Elizabeth's hair was already drenched, plastered to her head. Dropping to his knees, he reached down and grabbed her wrists. "Ready?"

"Yes," she called back, releasing the rung and twisting her hands to hold onto his wrists.

It wasn't the smartest idea he had, but John pulled her up, pausing at every rung to grip her arms further up, until he could grab her under her arms and lift her up. Her leg hit the hatch opening on the way up, and he heard a half-strangled scream. Then at last, she was on the surface, and both collapsed to the muddy ground.

John wasn't sure how long he lay there trying to catch his breath, but when he saw a streak of fire in the sky, he decided that they had to move. "Elizabeth," he said, "we have to get you to the _Megaera_. Come on."

She didn't say anything, but turned over and let John help her up. Then, without letting her protest, he lifted her carefully and carried her away, toward the clearing where he'd ringed down hours before.

* * *

  
"Carter," Jack whispered, "why does it always happen this way?"

Sam let her head thud softly against the wall she and Jack were pressed against. He had a point. They'd gotten in just fine, and now they couldn't get out. "I don't know," she said, as more Jaffa marched past toward the ring room. "Bad karma or something."

"Thought you didn't believe in that."

"Yeah, that may be why."

They stayed quiet until the sound of footsteps receded. Then Jack slowly looked around the corner. "All clear," he said. "Got any other ideas for getting out of here?"

Sam shrugged. "We could always steal a ship."

"Why didn't you say so before?"

The floor under them suddenly rocked. "What was that?" Jack asked.

"It's too early for the overload or the C-4," Sam replied. "The _Megaera_ must have resumed firing."

"I don't know about you," he said, "but the last way I want to die is in friendly fire on a different planet. Can we get out of here?"

She gestured toward what she thought would be the glider bay. "After you."

Acutely aware of how little time they had before the explosion occurred, they ran all the way there, pausing only to avoid Jaffa. They found the bay lightly guarded, but guarded nonetheless. "Okay, sir," Sam said, "now what do we do?"

"You got a flashbang?"

"Yeah."

"Get it out and throw it in there."

"That'll only give us about ten seconds–"

"Ten seconds is all we need to get into the nearest one," he said. "And if that's not enough, we'll throw another one."

Sam nodded, a little dubious, but doing it anyway. She pulled the cylinder from her vest, pushed the trigger, and tossed it into the bay. She and Jack covered their ears, squeezed their eyes shut, and turned away from the entry. They still heard the bang, but when they uncovered their ears they could still hear the chaos that ensued in the bay.

In they ran, scrambling up the ladder of the nearest death glider. Sam took the back seat this time. As soon as she and Jack were in, they started hearing staff weapons firing. "Sir," she said urgently.

"They can't hit the broad side of a barn even when they can see, Carter," he said.

Still, he hurried to get the glider airborne, maneuvering it out of the bay before they could raise any kind of shield to prevent their escape. Almost immediately a shot from the _Megaera_ whizzed over them. "Descending under cloud cover," Jack said.

Through the clouds they sank, and underneath they found themselves in a downpour. "Was it raining when we were on the surface, Carter?" he asked.

"No, sir," she replied, "but it did look like it was going to start at any time."

"Well, any time seems to have arrived." He made a sound of disgust. "I can't see anything. Carter, can you figure out where the radar is on this thing?"

"Already on it, sir."

But before she could find the craft's radar systems, something impacted from behind. "We're hit, sir!" she cried over the noise. "Diverting power to rear shields."

The glider suddenly lurched like the first big drop on a roller coaster. "We've lost inertial dampening," she added.

"Losing altitude," Jack said. "We have to land. Trying to make a clearing ahead."

Within a few seconds, something scraped the bottom of the glider. Sam was pretty sure it was a tree. "Hold on to something," Jack said. The only thing to grab was the back of Jack's seat, so she grabbed and held on as best she could. They lurched again, and the glider slammed into the ground.

* * *

  
Things were tense on the bridge of the _Megaera_ , where Jonas and Colonel Reynolds stood patiently, waiting for word on either Sam and Jack or John. It had been a long time since there had been any radio contact from either, and Colonel Pendergast had taken the calculated risk of firing once more on the Goa'uld mothership.

Suddenly a speaker crackled, and a technician said, "Sir, we're picking up a signal from the surface."

"Patch it through," Pendergast replied.

A few seconds later, a voice filled the bridge. " _Megaera_ , this is Colonel John Sheppard. Do you read?"

The ship's commander stepped up to a microphone. "Loud and clear, Colonel," he said.

"I'm approximately half a klick from the ring site," Sheppard said. "I have Doctor Weir with me. She's alive."

Despite the fact that John had said nothing of her condition beyond that, Jonas suddenly felt more relieved than he had about anything in days. "Request permission to ring up," John continued.

"Permission granted," Pendergast replied. "We'll have a medical team waiting for you."

Jonas turned and ran all the way from the bridge to the ring room two levels down, getting there just as the rings were activated. The medical team was coming in from the other direction. Within seconds, John Sheppard appeared, Doctor Weir in his arms, both of them drenched. "Doctor Weir," Jonas said. She turned her head to look at him. She was still a bloody mess, but she nodded to him before letting her head fall back to John's chest.

"Colonel," said a medic, "bring her over here."

He turned and took Elizabeth to the gurney they'd brought, where he laid her down and held her hand while the medics rushed around her to get everything ready to move. "You're going to be all right," he was saying. Jonas walked up, and when they started moving her, he followed.

The infirmary, already a busy place, shifted into overdrive when they arrived. "Get her on plasma and a saline drip!" Doctor Fraiser ordered. Jonas stood back at the entry while the medics pushed the gurney up to a vacant bed. "On three," Fraiser said, while the medics got ready to transfer her from one to the other. "One, two, three."

Doctor Weir screamed as they moved her, and Jonas winced. "Elizabeth," John said, pushing his way to her side and grabbing her hand. A nurse was inserting an IV in her other arm. "Elizabeth, I'm right here."

Her mouth moved, and John turned to the doorway. "Jonas," he said. "She wants to say something to you."

Jonas walked forward slowly, his arms folded over his chest. It was a little hard to look at Weir, if only because she still had streaks of blood on her face from where he'd failed to clean it off. "Jonas," she whispered, "I'm okay. Stop blaming yourself."

He couldn't help smiling. Of all the things she could have done then, she chose to be concerned about him. He nodded, and her eyes closed. Sheppard still held her hand.

"Jonas?" the colonel said, looking away from Doctor Weir. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Jonas replied. "Don't worry about it." He was pretty sure he understood why John had punched him.

He turned to go, but the _Megaera_ shook violently and the sound of an explosion washed over them. Colonel Pendergast's voice soon filled the ship. "The mothership has exploded," he announced. "What you just felt was a small shock wave. The threat has been eliminated."

The sounds of cheering filled the corridor outside the infirmary. Jonas headed out into the crowd outside. "However," Pendergast added, "at this point we have had no contact with Colonels O'Neill and Carter."

A zat couldn't have stunned the people in the hall more effectively. For the second time that day, Jonas felt as though he'd been punched. Surely, _surely_ , Jack and Sam had escaped. Surely they were still alive.

* * *


	17. Chapter 17

  
As if the initial impact of the glider into the ground hadn't been enough, it skidded across the clearing and into the tree line. Vainly Sam wondered why no one outside of Earth ever thought about seat belts as they crashed into the forest. By the time they were no longer moving, smoke had filled the cabin.

Coughing, she groped for the canopy release, before she remembered that there was only one in death gliders, and it was in the front. "Jack!" she called. "Jack, open it up."

"Huh?"

"Oh, never mind."

Sam stood as best she could and reached around him, grabbing the lever and yanking it up. The canopy popped and she pushed it open, and the torrential rain outside flushed the smoke from the cockpit. She shook Jack's shoulder. "Sir, we've got to get out of here," she said.

With the smoke gone, he seemed to be a bit more coherent. "Yeah," he replied, pushing himself up. He stepped up onto a ledge which Sam was sure wasn't supposed to be stepped on and jumped over the side. As soon as she was sure he'd moved out of her way, she followed suit.

She hit the ground with a thud. It was already swampy down there, and Sam wondered when it had started raining. "You okay?" Jack asked.

"Yeah," she said. "You?"

"Ears are ringing." He nodded at the glider. "We got lucky."

She looked up at the craft and understood what he meant. The nose of it was wrapped around a massive tree, and the wings looked like tattered sails. A few more feet of skidding across the mud would have sent Jack into that tree and probably would have killed him. There was still smoke rising from every imaginable crack. "We need to get away from this," Sam suddenly said. "It's going to blow."

Though incredibly sore, they ran as fast as they could, into the forest and as far away from the glider as possible. They weren't that far away when the rumbling began, and Jack suddenly knocked her to the ground and covered her. Then the blast sounded, and the forest floor shook beneath them.

A few seconds later, Jack rolled off her, and Sam turned over to look at the glider. The whole thing was engulfed by fire. Watching the flames leap and dance against the darkness while rain drenched her was one of the strangest sights she'd ever seen, but then something else began to worry her.

The earth had begun to tremble again.

"Carter," Jack was saying, "what's going on?"

"We're over the alpha site," she said, eyes suddenly wide. "The self-destruct."

Without another word, they ran away from the mountains as fast as they could.

* * *

  
Jonas pushed his way through the crowd still in the corridor and ran all the way back to the bridge. "Colonel Pendergast," he called. "Is there anything?"

"We've just started analyzing the sensor readings," Pendergast replied. "Lieutenant."

The young man at the console where Pendergast and Jonas were now standing nodded. "There was a small explosion not long after we began firing," he said. "It's not in the same location as the explosion that destroyed the mothership. It seems to have been in one of their glider bays."

"Was that before or after the mothership started firing erratically?" Pendergast asked.

"Before," said the lieutenant. "Just before."

"Colonel," Jonas said, "is it possible that Sam and Jack could have escaped through the glider bay?"

"You may be on to something, Quinn," the colonel replied.

"That'd explain why the mothership was firing erratically. They were firing at a glider that escaped," Jonas continued. "Lieutenant, pull up the radar readings for the minute before the explosion."

The officer did so, and the three of them watched as a dot, very small in comparison with the mothership, flew toward the _Megaera_. Then its flight path suddenly jerked, and a few seconds later, it dropped off the radar screen entirely.

Jonas ran over to the navigation console. "Captain," he said to the man at it, "get me a map of the surface."

"What kind of map, sir?"

"Anything showing detail of the forest," Jonas replied.

The captain complied, and soon a detail of the ground below appeared on the screen. "There," Jonas said, pointing to a lightly-shaded area. "There's a clearing there, and it's not far from where the glider dropped off radar. If they survived the crash, that's where they are."

"Captain," said Pendergast, "plot a course for that clearing."

"Sir," Jonas began, "I'd like to take a team down–"

"Negative," said the colonel. "The self-destruct is going to go off any minute now, and I don't want my people down there when it does. You've found them if they're still alive. That's going to have to be enough."

Frustrated, Jonas nodded, and together they waited.

* * *

  
They gave Elizabeth another dose of morphine not long after moving her, along with a sedative, so she'd calmed down considerably. John was getting more and more anxious, but he was willing to step back and let the medical team do its work.

Finally Janet turned her attention away from her patient, letting another doctor continue. She came up to John and pulled her surgical mask off. "Are _you_ all right, John?"

The question caught him off-guard, and it took him a while to answer. "Yeah, I guess," he replied. "I mean, it's not like it's been my best day."

"The radio chatter was broadcast in here," said the doctor. "We heard when you and Mitchell got shot down."

John closed his eyes. He'd forgotten about Mitchell, and had he had more energy, he might have kicked himself for it. The man deserved more respect than that.

When he opened his eyes again, they were wheeling Elizabeth's bed out of the room. He frowned. "What's going on?"

"Relax, Colonel," said Janet. "They're taking her to pre-op. We may need to operate on her leg. There was a lot of damage."

"Yeah." Still, he didn't like the sight of her being taken away. "There's something else," he said. "She was having a lot of trouble breathing. I don't know if that means anything."

Janet's eyes narrowed, and she called a nurse over and instructed her to tell the doctors to get a chest X-ray before they did anything else. Then the petite woman turned her attention back to John. "Colonel, won't you sit for a minute and let me make sure you're all right?"

"Why?"

She let out an exasperated sigh. "You sound just like Cassandra," she said. "Because I told you to."

He gave her a weary smile. "You sound just like my mom."

He sat down anyway, grateful for the chance to get off his feet. Janet pulled her penlight out and shone it in his eyes. "What happened when you and Mitchell were shot down?" she asked.

"I ejected," John replied. "I think I got knocked out when the 302 exploded. The next thing I knew, I was stuck in the forest canopy."

Janet held her finger up and moved it around, and John followed the movement with his eyes. "How did you get down?"

"Climbed."

The doctor put her hands on the back of his head, feeling around for injuries that might be hidden by his hair. "You had to carry her a lot, didn't you?" she asked.

John nodded. "It was hurting her too much to walk."

She shook her head. "It was reckless of you to go in there," she said, "but I'm glad you did."

"I couldn't leave her," John said quietly.

Janet squeezed his hand. "I know."

Then, as she took his pulse, she frowned. "You're breathing awfully heavily, John."

"I am?"

Releasing his wrist, she touched his sides. The dull, ever-present pain suddenly flared to life, and John yelped a curse. "What was that for?"

"Lift your shirt up," Janet ordered.

"What?"

She didn't give the instruction again. Instead, she grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled it up herself. Her eyes widened. "Colonel, how the hell did you manage to _walk_ , let alone carry her?"

"What?" he repeated. Then Janet tugged the shirt up more, and John looked down to see his torso black with bruises. "Oww."

The doctor shook her head. "I know adrenaline can let people do some pretty incredible things, but this is insane," she said. "You must have cracked or bruised all your ribs."

"Can you do anything about it?"

"Of course," she replied. "I'll get a nurse to bandage you up, and then you're to lay off the strenuous activity for a few weeks. But I can't believe you did this much damage to yourself and were still able to move."

Gently, he pushed her hands away and pulled his shirt back down. "It's ‘cause I'm special."

"Clearly."

* * *

  
Sam didn't really care where the _Megaera_ was as she and Jack ran. They just had to get away from the epicenter of the blast. Once she looked behind and saw the ground beginning to sink in the distance.

She ran harder.

They passed one of the escape hatches set on the perimeter of the base and ran a few hundred feet before stopping to breathe. They knew it wasn't safe there, but they were safer there than they would have been by the glider. As soon as she thought she could talk and be understood, she hit the button on her radio and said, " _Megaera_ , this is Colonel Carter. Do you read?"

All the response she got was static, so Jack tried his. " _Megaera_ , Colonel O'Neill, over."

Sam leaned over, hands on her knees, as Jack tried again. Then suddenly a voice came through their speakers. "Colonel O'Neill, this is Colonel Pendergast. Good to know you're still out there."

Jack looked at Sam and pushed his hand through his wet hair. "Any chance you folks could give us a lift?"

"We're picking up your beacon now," said Pendergast. "We were already heading in this direction, though. Jonas thought you'd be in this area."

"We'll be waiting," Jack replied. "O'Neill out."

The ground was beginning to quake more violently, but a few minutes later, the _Megaera_ descended through the clouds and hovered over them. The rings encircled them, and the last of the Tau'ri still alive left the surface of the moon for good.

* * *

  
When Elizabeth awoke, she felt numb all over. But it was much to be preferred to the excruciating pain of the previous days, so she let out a sigh of deep relief.

It felt good to breathe.

"Hey there," said a voice familiar and hoarse.

Elizabeth opened her eyes to the dim light. She didn't know her surroundings, but she knew that voice. She'd know it anywhere.

"John." The word was more mouthed than spoken, but when her eyes sought and found him, she was greeted with a smile.

He touched her forehead. It was not a touch as though to check her temperature, but a caress. His fingers were rough against her skin as he brushed her cheek. "You had me worried."

Not _us_. _Me_.

She tried to smile. "Where are we?"

"The _Megaera_ ," he replied. "In the primary infirmary."

"How many survived?"

"From the alpha site?" he asked. "Maybe fifty. Could have been worse. There were a lot of teams off-world."

Elizabeth nodded. Then she coughed, sending sharp jolts into her lungs. Once it had subsided, she lifted her hand to her chest and finally noticed that she was on IV. She stared at the tube curiously and met John's soft smile.

"You lost a lot of blood," he explained. "Doctor Fraiser was amazed you made it as far as you did on your own."

"But this isn't blood."

"You were severely dehydrated. Still are, probably," he continued, his thumb running over her chapped lips. Without thinking, she tried to wet them with her tongue. She thought she saw him swallow a little harder than was necessary. "You had a collapsed lung too," he added.

"That explains quite a lot," she mused. "But what about you?"

"Me?" He looked a little uncomfortable. "I had a couple cracked ribs."

"And you carried me?" Elizabeth asked in disbelief.

"Didn't have much choice, did I?"

She winced and closed her eyes. She'd been focused on surviving for so long that she'd almost forgotten that others had been injured as well.

Tears started forming, and one slipped from the corner of her eye. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if John was the only man she'd ever cried in front of, at least as an adult. But the thought was quickly driven away as his fingers, so very warm, brushed at the moisture. "John," she whispered, "is it over?"

She opened her eyes to see him shaking his head. "No," he replied. "The battle's just beginning. But we're safe right now. I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

"Why?"

He spoke nothing. Instead, he leaned over and gave her a kiss that was slow and gentle, yet one that lingered and left her breathless.

"Get some rest," he said, after a final brush of his fingertips against her lips. "I'll be here when you wake up."

It was a promise he kept.

* * *

  
Janet got Sam and Jack through the infirmary quickly, patching up bumps and bruises and giving both of them something for headaches. Sam asked about Doctor Weir, but Janet merely pointed at where Sheppard was keeping watch and smiled.

She and Jack left together, their hands somehow clasping before they reached his quarters. Still dressed in their wet, dirty clothes, they collapsed on the bed, exhausted. For a long time, Sam did not dream, her body and mind too tired to bother.

But then in her mind there was a glow, and she was in her lab, back in her reality, with Daniel. "New place," the dream Daniel said.

Sam walked over to her table and sat on the stool there. "Got a theory on what this means?"

"Sure," he said. "What do you think?"

"This is where I usually am after a big victory."

"That's one way to look at it."

"What do you think?"

"It doesn't matter. What the subconscious mind chooses is not as important as you think." Daniel picked up an artifact.. "You got my message."

Sam looked at him curiously for a moment. He didn't speak, but she heard his voice quite clearly.

" _The answer is right in front of you_."

She nodded. "Jack was waking up," she said. "You wanted me to hang on long enough for him to kill Herak."

He smiled a little. "Maybe what _your_ mind chooses is as important as you think."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Where are we?"

Sam shook her head, not knowing what he was getting at. "Home."

"Home," he repeated. "And the answer is right in front of you."

Sam's eyes widened. "The answer's _you_ ," she said, almost gasping.

Daniel smiled. "Took you long enough."

"But I don't understand," she said. "You're not allowed to interfere–"

"Or the Others will kick me out," he finished. "I've learned too much from your reality, Sam. I know what the Others have done. I'm going to take human form again, but if you choose to take my help, I'll wait until you go."

"What's going to happen to these people?" she asked, after a long pause.

"I don't know, Sam," he replied. "But whatever happens, we're going to fight until we're free. It's what mankind has been doing since the dawn of oppression, because that freedom is something we all long for."

Sam sat for a long time, looking at the notes on her desk. Without looking up at him, she asked, "Can I say goodbye to them here?"

"You can have all the time you want," he said, reaching across to take her hand. "I'll be here. I haven't left your side, and I won't until you're safely home."

* * *


	18. Chapter 18

  
The day that personnel returned to the SGC, Jonas found Sarah waiting for him in their shared lab, papers strung out all over the place. It looked like a tornado had swept through and left a destructive path of rubbings and scribbles. He walked in cautiously, like he was wading into a pond full of eels. "Sarah," he said, "what happened to you?"

"Jonas!" she said, though he couldn't see her. "You'll never believe it, not in a million years."

"What, you're getting married?"

She stood up behind a table. "Very funny." She hefted a large book onto the table, which it hit with an impressive thud. "While you and the others were off saving the galaxy, I finished the translations."

Jonas dropped his bag where he stood and jogged to the table. "The Vyus translations?"

Sarah smiled. "Yes! Jonas, it's more than we ever dreamt it would be."

He picked up a page and began to read. "Was it 'strength to the weak' or 'power to the defenseless'?"

"Power," she replied. "It was talking about weapons platforms found in Ancient outposts all across the galaxy. This could be the key."

"The key to what?"

"Defeating Anubis. Protecting billions upon billions of humans in the galaxy who have lived under oppression for so long. Don't you see, Jonas? Everything we've fought for."

Jonas nodded. For her, having been party to that oppression, that fight was far more personal, even though she had never lifted a weapon in opposition. "This is an incredible find," he said.

"And that's not all."

"It's not?"

Sarah shook her head. "The city."

Jonas searched his recollection. "The lost city?" he said. "You didn't think that made any sense."

"It didn't," she replied. "Then I translated another panel. It's not just a lost city. It's the Lost City of the Ancients. And they didn't lose it. They made it lost."

"Why?"

"I don't know for certain. There was a war with a terrible enemy, so they submerged their city under the water. Jonas," she said, shaking her head, "do you know what this means?"

He too was shaking his head in disbelief. "It can't be."

Sarah smiled. "Atlantis."

* * *

  
Jack stayed in the base for a few days after the _Megaera_ reached Earth once more, on Janet Fraiser's order. Even though he and Sam both insisted that they were fine, she told them she would be the judge of that, and that she wasn't leaving anything to chance.

When he went home, Sam stayed at the base, compiling notes on all manner of things – the Eye of Ra, the likely fate of Kelowna, the likely place to find Daniel once he descended, the Ancient gene, the chair in Antarctica. There was information she took for herself, like the address of the planet where in this reality they had found dozens of ZPMs. She had to go home – that much she could not contest – but she could not leave these people without some measure of help.

Then one afternoon, a week after their return to Earth, she asked Doctor Weir to call a meeting, and to include Jack. Sam didn't say why, and Elizabeth seemed to know, somehow, the way she always seemed to know.

She was still writing, trying to give them as much information as she could, when Jack walked into the lab. He said nothing, but walked to her side and picked up a magnifying glass. When Sam looked up, he was making a fish face. She smothered a laugh with her hand. He set the glass aside. "What's up?" he asked.

"Making some notes," she replied, finishing off a sentence and shifting the papers aside. "You're early."

"Yeah, figured I'd come early and find out what this is about." He looked down at the papers. "Doctor Weir actually wanted to talk to me before things got started. I just got out of her office."

"What did she want?"

"She wants me to consider leading the military contingent of an expedition," he said. "Before all this got started, Jonas and Sarah were translating some stuff at an Ancient site on Vyus. They found something about a lost city with all kinds of power and stuff. Weir's thinking about trying to find it. Might be our only hope at defeating Anubis."

Sam sighed and shifted through her notes. "It's in the Pegasus galaxy," she said, handing him a page with the address on it. "We sent a team, including Weir and Sheppard. We've not heard from them, so I'd suggest taking some ZPMs."

Jack looked at the paper, then at the stack again. "What is all this?"

"Everything I can think of that might be useful for this reality."

There was a long moment of silence, and he sat down next to her. "You figured out how to get home."

Sam closed her eyes. "I'm sorry."

Unexpectedly, his hand rested over hers. "No, don't."

"No, I'm sorry." She sniffed. "I shouldn't have – I should have kept my distance."

He squeezed her fingers. "Sam, don't do this. We knew."

"It was just so hard," she said. "I didn't want to ignore you, but I knew it was a bad idea."

"You're not my wife," he quietly replied. "You're like her, but you're not her. I don't know how else to describe it. But I've known that all along."

"You were so mad at Doctor Weir when I got here."

"I know." He released her hand to rub her back. "I didn't get to say goodbye to my Sam. I think she thought you'd help me get over that."

More than anything, Sam wanted to lay her head down on the desk and disappear. "I've just made things worse."

"No," he said firmly. "No, Sam, you haven't."

She looked at him, and he touched her cheek. "You're going to live," he continued, "and I'll be okay. You'll die if you stay here. I can't live with that."

He leaned forward and kissed her, and with every moment that passed, Sam was sure she was going to start crying. But somehow she didn't. The kiss was goodbye, and yet it wasn't. Somehow, deep in her heart she knew that she had come to this crossroad for a reason.

Perhaps, someday, she would come to it once more.

* * *

  
Once the _Megaera_ had reached Earth once more, Janet let Elizabeth get back to work in a limited schedule. On the first afternoon, when the President and the Joint Chiefs had tried to keep her on a conference call longer than the doctor had said she could be out of bed, Janet took the phone away and told the men that unless they wanted Elizabeth's lung to collapse again, they would let her go. The call had quickly ended. No one messed with Janet Fraiser on medical matters.

Elizabeth liked that briskness, though. It was why Janet's patients usually recovered so nicely. It was so evident that she cared deeply for every person she treated. That concern was in no way diminished by the fact that Elizabeth was her boss, either. Every day someone came to make sure she lay down for a few hours, to keep from overexerting herself after such serious trauma.

Janet had an ally, too. John was watching over her quite a lot, and even now he was waiting in the doorway for her to get off the phone, if for no other reason than to help her up and hand her her crutches. She was going to be very grateful when she was able to walk without them.

With a sigh, she hung up the red phone and looked over at him. "I don't know what's more taxing," she said, "the Joint Chiefs or the Goa'uld."

He smiled. "Kinsey."

"Yeah, you're right."

He came up to her desk and sat in one of the chairs in front of it. "So have there been any decisions?" he asked.

"A few," Elizabeth replied. "The most salient of which is that I'm stepping back to an advisory role here. We were all agreed that with a war on again, the base needs a military commander."

"A couple years ago you wouldn't have agreed to that."

She smiled. "A couple weeks ago I probably wouldn't have agreed to that," she said. "But there's something big going on out there. We can't take it lightly."

"No one said you were," John replied, leaning forward and resting his arms on the desk.

"True," she said. "Regardless, they're promoting Colonel Dixon to brigadier general and placing him in command of the SGC. They have another job for me."

"What's that?"

"Sarah and Jonas have been finding all kinds of information regarding a city of the Ancients," she replied. "We think we can find it, and the President has asked me to put together a team." She leaned forward too, matching his posture. "I want you on it."

"Me?"

Elizabeth nodded. "You'll be a valuable asset."

"Well, when you put it that way..."

She smiled. "Good."

There came a rap from the door to the briefing room, and she looked up to see Jonas. "We're all here, Doctor," he said.

"Good," she replied. "I'll be out in a minute."

When Jonas left, John took that as his cue and his chivalry kicked in. He took her hand and helped her up, then walked her into the briefing room. Her crutches weren't the most comfortable things in the world but she didn't want to sit, so when she reached her chair, she set the crutches aside and rested her hands on the back of the chair. "Colonel Carter," she said, "we're all here."

Sam nodded and glanced at Jack before setting a thick folder on the table. "I've spent the last few days compiling all the information I can think of which might be useful to this reality," she said, looking at Jonas and Sarah in particular.

"That's good to know," Elizabeth replied, "but what happened to your research on the Ancient device?"

"The device isn't going to work," said Sam. "That's not how I'm going home."

"Then how?" Jonas asked.

She hesitated. "Daniel."

" _Daniel_?"

Elizabeth wasn't sure how many people had said the word with her, but as Sam looked past her, another voice she remembered filled the room. "I'm here, Sam," a man said. Elizabeth looked over her shoulder to see a face she recognized. There was Daniel wearing an off-white sweater, his arms folded over his chest.

She looked around. Sam was the only person who didn't seem surprised by the sudden appearance of a dead man. "How is this possible?" Sarah asked.

"Death is just a step on a journey, Sarah," Daniel said. "I took that step, but I've been here with you. You just didn't know what to look for."

He looked at Sam, who nodded. "I didn't want to leave without thanking all of you," she said. "I hope... I hope everything works out for you. I hope you find the Lost City, and I hope you can find a way to defeat Anubis. I hope..."

Jack laid his hand on her shoulder. "We're going to be all right, Sam."

She turned and hugged him, and Elizabeth glanced at John. He ran a hand through his hair and gave her a sad kind of smile. Then Sam pulled away from Jack, and Daniel came up to her. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"How does this work?" Jack asked. "Does she click her heels together or something?"

Daniel didn't answer, his eyes still on Sam. She took a final look around the room, her eyes lingering long on Jack. "Goodbye," she said. "And thank you. For everything."

None of them knew what to say to that, so Daniel took her hands and closed his eyes. The room began to glow as light swirled and swelled around the pair. Then there was a burst of light. When Elizabeth's eyes had recovered, both Daniel and Sam were gone.

She was the first to recover sufficiently to speak. "Jonas," she said, "hand me the file."

He did so silently, and Elizabeth opened it. There on the first page was an eight-symbol address carefully drawn, with the word "Atlantis" under it. "We can face what's coming," she said softly, running her fingers over the word. "Whatever it is, whatever Anubis can throw at us."

John rested his hand on her back, and Elizabeth smiled. "She's given us that hope."

* * *

  
The next day would be three months since Sam had disappeared from her lab in a flash of light, and Jack was finally almost ready to change her status from missing to missing, presumed dead. It had been too long to hold out hope.

He was on his way home, but he got off the elevator long before he reached the surface. Wandering through the halls, he got several odd looks from passers-by. He wasn't often in this section of the base unaccompanied. It wasn't that he needed an escort, but few things drew him into the land of geeks, let alone caused him to meander through their corridors.

When he reached Carter's lab, he stopped. For reasons passing understanding, he went in.

It had been left untouched for weeks. Even Ke'ra's artifact still remained on the table where they'd been testing it. The only light in this room was from the hall, as it had been since Sam's disappearance. He thought for a moment about flipping the switch next to the door, but it would have marred the solitude.

For a moment he thought he felt something, a presence he had felt as Daniel was dying. Then he heard a soft sob coming from behind the table, and he walked around it to see a familiar figure huddled and crying. But for a moment, he didn't believe it.

" _Carter_?"

The blonde woman looked up, her eyes red. "Jack," she said, scrambling to her feet.

She wiped her cheek with her sleeve. Jack shook his head. "Carter, where have you–"

But something about the look on her face stopped his words. He hadn't seen her this upset since Janet's death. "Hey," he said, in a gentler tone, "come here."

She complied easily, letting him hug her until she stopped shaking. "Sir..."

He shushed her gently, despite the fact that he had so many questions he suddenly wanted to ask. He thought about Daniel's research, wondering if she had indeed ended up in another dimension as he had speculated, but that could wait. For a long time they stood there, and Jack began to wonder if this was just a product of his imagination, as if this was the last page he needed to turn before he could let go of what little hope remained. But she felt so real.

Several minutes later, when she was calm again, he hugged her a little tighter. "Good to have you back, Carter," he said.

She took a deep breath. "It's good to be back, sir."

* * *


End file.
